PrepTest 133, Section 1, Question 8
Letter to the editor: Your article was unjustified(79 more words not shown)
Which one of the following(14 more words not shown)
- AEnvironmentalists have been(11 more words not shown)
- BAs many wolves(12 more words not shown)
- CThe population of(24 more words not shown)
- DThe recent studies(19 more words not shown)
- EThe stability in(18 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
A steady wolf count doesn't tell us how the wolves got there.
If we considered only births and deaths, a stable population might look like evidence that hunters aren't killing more wolves than are born. But what if people are bringing in additional wolves? The population could stay level while hunting losses exceed births, because the new arrivals make up the difference.
That's exactly the overlooked factor the letter identifies. Environmentalists have been introducing wolves for the same twenty years covered by the studies. The studies could be right about the stable total, while the article draws the wrong inference from that total.
What we’re looking for
Now we're asked for the letter's conclusion. Keep the two voices separate. The article criticizes the environmentalists' claim; the letter says that criticism wasn't justified. The introductions explain why it wasn't justified. We aren't being asked to recommend a conservation policy or to prove the exact number of wolves born and killed.
Working the answers
- A
Introducing wolves is the letter's evidence against the article's reasoning. Even if that effort has helped maintain the population, it isn't the main point the writer is trying to establish. The writer uses the additional wolves to show why the article's criticism doesn't follow from the stable count.
- B
This says births and hunting deaths are equal. The environmentalists claimed that hunting deaths exceed births, and the letter defends that claim against the article's attempted disproof. It doesn't conclude that the numbers are equal. Nor do introductions and a stable population, by themselves, settle the exact comparison between births and hunting deaths.
- C
This recommends what people should do to maintain the population. The letter isn't choosing between reducing hunting and introducing wolves. It is evaluating whether the article fairly rejected the environmentalists' claim. A possible policy response is a different conclusion.
- D
We don't have to reject the studies to reject the article's interpretation of them. The studies could count every wolf correctly and find that the population stayed constant. The mistake would still be treating that fact as proof that births keep up with hunting, while ignoring introduced wolves. The letter challenges that inference, not the accuracy of the reported total.
- ECorrect
The population's stability doesn't justify the criticism. Introduced wolves provide another way for the total to remain stable even if more wolves are killed by hunters than are born. That possibility undercuts the article's attempted disproof. E states the letter's main point, while the information about introductions supplies the reason for it.
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