PrepTest 116, Section 2, Question 7
Failure to rotate crops depletes the soil's nutrients(84 more words not shown)
Suppose there were some vegetables(31 more words not shown)
- AThe soil in(20 more words not shown)
- BIt is not(14 more words not shown)
- CThe vegetables were(21 more words not shown)
- DWhatever the health(20 more words not shown)
- EThe health risks(25 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
It would be useful to avoid needing fertilizer in the first place. The passage gives us a chain of potential trouble: depleted soil requires fertilizer before more crops can grow; vegetables grown with fertilizer need more pesticides, all else equal; and more pesticides mean greater health risks from eating the vegetables.
Crop rotation is one way to avoid starting that chain. But read the exceptions carefully. Other preventive measures can protect the soil too. And saying fertilizer is required after complete depletion doesn't promise that applying it will always be enough to make crops grow.
What we’re looking for
Now the question gives us vegetables grown in soil that has never had fertilizer applied. What must be true about them? My first thought is the comparison at the end of the passage: all else equal, these vegetables avoid the additional pest vulnerability and pesticide burden associated with fertilized soil. Let's see which answer actually follows from the information we have.
Working the answers
- A
If this soil had been completely depleted, additional crops could not have been grown without fertilizer. But these vegetables were grown there, and fertilizer was never applied. A allows a situation that conflicts with that combination of facts.
- B
Why couldn't the crops have been rotated? Rotation could have helped keep the soil usable without fertilizer. We don't know that it happened, but nothing rules it out. B turns that uncertainty into an unsupported impossibility.
- CCorrect
This takes us back to the earlier part of the chain. The vegetables grew without fertilizer, so the soil cannot have been completely depleted: that condition would have required fertilizer before further crops could grow.
We still don't know whether the farmer rotated crops. Perhaps other preventive measures protected the nutrients. Perhaps this was the first crop planted in the field, so no earlier crop had depleted it. C keeps both points straight: no complete depletion, but no guarantee of rotation.
- D
Less pesticide doesn't mean no pesticide. The passage says fertilized vegetables must receive larger amounts; it doesn't say vegetables grown without fertilizer never need treatment. These vegetables could still have received some pesticides, and those pesticides could still contribute to health risks. D eliminates a possibility the facts leave open.
- E
We aren't given enough information to make this comparison. Vegetables grown without fertilizer could themselves have been treated with pesticides, and the answer doesn't tell us how much pesticide either group received. The stated rule connects larger pesticide amounts with greater risks; it doesn't establish that our vegetables' risks are at least as high as those of any same-kind vegetables treated with pesticides.
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