PrepTest 155, Section 1, Question 5
Of the dinosaurs of the birdlike group called(66 more words not shown)
Which one of the following,(10 more words not shown)
- ASome dinosaurs with(18 more words not shown)
- BToothless beaks and(13 more words not shown)
- CExcept for the(16 more words not shown)
- DMost G. bullatus(14 more words not shown)
- EPaleontologists have not(12 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
A toothless beak and weak jaws make me wonder what this dinosaur ate. Perhaps its food didn't require much biting or crushing. But that's only a starting guess.
The comblike plate is more promising evidence. Modern ducks and geese have similar plates and use them to strain small bits of food from water and mud. I can see why the paleontologists suspect G. bullatus fed that way too.
Still, could the plate serve another purpose? Resembling a modern animal in this one feature doesn't guarantee an identical diet. That's the question I'd want to investigate before treating the feeding hypothesis as established.
What we’re looking for
We're asked to strengthen it. One possibility would be evidence that there are no other known uses for such plates. That would make the resemblance more telling. But let's stay open to another kind of evidence that connects this dinosaur with the proposed way of feeding.
Working the answers
- A
This gives us another possible diet for animals with toothless beaks and weak jaws: small prey and eggs. It doesn't establish that G. bullatus ate those foods, but it certainly doesn't support filtering food from mud and water. If anything, it supplies an alternative to investigate.
- B
Whether those features were unique to this dinosaur group doesn't tell us how the group ate. We need a connection between the anatomy and filtering food. A claim that other groups lacked the anatomy supplies no such connection.
- C
Which other anatomical features differ? Differences in size or feathers might have little to do with how the plate was used. We shouldn't invent an important digestive difference from this vague description. Even if the differences did undermine the comparison with ducks and geese, that would weaken the hypothesis. Nothing here makes the proposed feeding behavior more likely.
- DCorrect
This takes a different route from the prediction: it connects G. bullatus with the environments where the proposed food was available. Most fossils occur in sediments deposited in lakes, rivers, or other wet places. Alongside the comblike plate, that association gives us another reason to consider feeding from water and mud plausible.
Finding fossils in those sediments doesn't prove the animals filtered food there. But we don't need proof. Evidence connecting this dinosaur with wet environments adds support to the anatomical comparison.
- E
Whether any other dinosaur had this plate doesn't establish what G. bullatus used its plate for. The feature could be unique to this dinosaur and still have some purpose other than filtering food. We need information about its use, not simply how widely it appeared among dinosaurs.
More Strengthen questions
Learn the LSAT our way
Our platform drills Strengthen questions at your level and adjusts as you improve.