PrepTest 116, Section 3, Question 19
Today's farmers plant only a handful of different(47 more words not shown)
Which one of the following,(7 more words not shown)
- AIn the past,(10 more words not shown)
- BAffected crops can(13 more words not shown)
- CSome of the(22 more words not shown)
- DHumans today have(20 more words not shown)
- EToday's crops are(19 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
Why plant fewer strains? Maybe farmers prefer the ones that grow well or produce a crop people want. Less variety isn't automatically a problem.
The author gives us a reason it could be a problem, though: disease. If a disease attacks only a few strains, a diverse field might lose a small part of its crop while the rest survives. Imagine losing 10 percent rather than nearly everything. Planting mostly the vulnerable strains could leave the food supply much more exposed.
That makes sense, but what if the strains farmers now use are especially resistant to disease? Maybe that is part of why farmers choose them. We shouldn't assume today's narrower selection will be devastated without considering what protects it.
What we’re looking for
For the weaken question, that is my prediction: evidence that the current strains resist disease. We need a reason to doubt the forecast of devastation. Let's stay open to another answer that protects the food supply in a different way.
Working the answers
- A
The passage doesn't say no disease ever devastated food supplies in the past. It concerns a disease that strikes only a few strains and would formerly have had a minor impact. Some past diseases could have been much more widespread. A doesn't show that today's food supply would withstand the particular threat being described.
- BCorrect
This offers a backup plan instead of the resistance I predicted. Even if the planted crops are affected, farmers can quickly replace them using many other strains stored in seed banks. The currently planted strains aren't the only ones available.
The first crop could still suffer damage. B doesn't erase that loss. But quick replacement gives us a reason to doubt that damage to a few strains would devastate the food supply. A weakener doesn't need to show that the disease would have no effect; it needs to make the predicted consequence less certain.
- C
This points in the wrong direction. It says some older strains were more resistant than today's popular strains. That gives us less reason to trust the current crops' defenses, not more. It doesn't establish the present-day protection we were looking for.
- D
A more varied diet might sound reassuring, but this answer also says people still rely heavily on cereal crops. It doesn't establish that the additional variety would provide enough food if major crops were lost. The conclusion concerns the food supply, so diet can matter; D simply doesn't show a sufficient replacement or protection against the threat described.
- E
Insects and weeds aren't the disease in the argument. A crop could resist those problems and still be highly vulnerable to a disease affecting its strain. E gives a different kind of protection without connecting it to the predicted threat.
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