PrepTest 126, Section 2, Question 13

Working the answers

• A
  Correct

  A already reports reductions in animal productivity. If local population reductions often precede widespread endangerment, those declines can be an early warning. B's observation that the mammals aren't currently threatened across North America becomes less reassuring, while A gains a reason to act before the problem grows.

  Notice that the answer says reduction, not extinction. We don't need evidence that every animal has vanished from a particular wetland. The new information connects a smaller decline with a possible wider danger; it doesn't have to repeat a claim already established.

• B

  When people noticed the weed doesn't establish how much ecological harm it causes or whether the campaign's justification is sound.

• C

  Large financial losses would make B's proposed economic motivation more plausible. That doesn't cast doubt on B's argument.

• D

  Advocates explicitly viewing eradication as control of nature would support B's account of their motives, not challenge it.

• E

  Being unproblematic in its native habitat doesn't tell us what it does in North American wetlands. It supplies no reason to take the introduced weed's local effects more seriously, so it doesn't perform the requested two jobs.