PrepTest 110, Section 3, Question 3
Sigatoka disease drastically reduces the yield of banana(80 more words not shown)
Which one of the following(8 more words not shown)
- AIt will eventually(13 more words not shown)
- BLarge plantations produce(7 more words not shown)
- CSigatoka disease spreads(10 more words not shown)
- DSigatoka disease is(10 more words not shown)
- EMost of the(16 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
We have a way to control the disease, but can the growers actually use it?
The fungicide creates a tradeoff. It protects banana trees, yet it can endanger nearby people. We aren't told how serious that danger is. A mild irritation and a life-threatening illness would raise very different concerns. Still, the argument tells us the treatment is unsuitable for small groves in populated areas, so let's keep that restriction.
Most large plantations are isolated enough to use the fungicide safely. That's encouraging. But safe to use doesn't mean available to use. What if growers can't afford it? What if the fungicide never reaches the plantations that need it? The disease could remain a serious threat even though a treatment exists.
What we’re looking for
The question asks for an assumption the argument depends on. My initial concern is whether growers can actually get and use the treatment. We need something the author relies on in moving from the possibility of safe treatment to reassurance about the world's banana crop. We don't have to find a statement that solves every possible problem.
Working the answers
- A
The argument relies on fungicide, not on breeding disease-resistant bananas. Resistant varieties might offer another solution someday, but this particular argument can work without them. A future method of protection isn't an assumption required by the method the author gives.
- BCorrect
This exposes another gap: most large plantations aren't the same thing as most of the world's bananas.
Suppose small, family-run groves produced 99 percent of the crop and large plantations produced only 1 percent. Even if the large plantations could all be protected, that would tell us very little about the safety of the world's supply. Many of the bananas could still be growing near people, where the fungicides are unsuitable.
The author needs the large plantations to account for most of the crop for the evidence about those plantations to support the conclusion about most bananas. B supplies that connection. It doesn't resolve my earlier concern about access to the fungicide, and it doesn't have to resolve every remaining issue to identify an assumption the argument needs.
- C
The argument doesn't depend on slower spread at large plantations. The fungus could spread just as quickly there, and effective fungicide could still control it. The proposed protection comes from the treatment, not from a difference in the disease's speed.
- D
Other diseases could threaten bananas too. The conclusion is specifically about the threat from Sigatoka disease, not a guarantee that the crop faces no danger of any kind. We don't need Sigatoka to be the only worldwide banana disease.
- E
This concerns trees that haven't been exposed to the fungus. The argument doesn't rely on where those trees grow. Its support concerns the ability to control the disease at large plantations, and its conclusion concerns most of the world's crop. E doesn't supply the needed connection between those two groups.
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