PrepTest 128, Section 3, Question 15
The number of deer living in North America(36 more words not shown)
Which one of the following,(12 more words not shown)
- APesticides that adversely(13 more words not shown)
- BRecently, attempts have(15 more words not shown)
- CThe number of(10 more words not shown)
- DMuch of the(18 more words not shown)
- EThe greater the(18 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
More deer, despite all those pressures? Hunters kill at least as many deer as before, natural predators are increasing, and suburbs are taking over deer habitat. Those facts make the population growth something we want explained.
Maybe the deer have more food. Perhaps a competing species has declined, leaving more resources for them. Or perhaps another source of harm, such as exposure to a chemical, has decreased. These are possible places to look, not facts we've been given.
What we’re looking for
The resolution question asks for something that helps explain how the increase can coexist with the threats. We need a favorable change that could outweigh the unfavorable ones. It doesn't have to make hunting, predation, or habitat loss disappear.
Working the answers
- ACorrect
Banning pesticides that harmed most wildlife removes a possible pressure on deer survival. Deer could benefit from less exposure to those chemicals while hunters still kill as many deer and predators continue to increase.
This doesn't quantify the benefit or prove that it fully explains the dramatic increase. I'd like more detail about its size. But the answer supplies a favorable change over the relevant broad period, giving us a reason the population might rise despite the listed threats. That is the helpful direction we need.
- B
Attempts to protect habitat aren't necessarily successful protection. The efforts are also recent and in various parts of North America, while we're explaining an overall increase since the 1960s. B doesn't establish enough successful protection to account for that pattern, and it leaves intact the stated fact that suburbs increasingly encroach on deer habitat.
- C
Count the deer killed, not just the hunters. Fewer hunters can kill the same number of deer if each hunter kills more. The passage explicitly says hunters kill no fewer deer today, so a decline in the number of hunters doesn't establish that deer face less hunting pressure.
- D
Being born in captivity explains where the additional wolves came from. It doesn't show that they cease to threaten deer after being released. Without evidence that their effect on deer differs, their origin doesn't explain why the deer population has grown.
- E
Famine and disease would give a growing population additional problems. That makes continued growth more puzzling, rather than providing a favorable change that helps explain it.
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