LSAT and Law School Admissions Forum

Get expert LSAT preparation and law school admissions advice from PowerScore Test Preparation.

 Administrator
PowerScore Staff
  • PowerScore Staff
  • Posts: 8919
  • Joined: Feb 02, 2011
|
#73603
Complete Question Explanation

Strengthen. The correct answer choice is (B).

The author gives us evidence about some of the local mourning dove nesting habitat being disturbed by sprinklers and abandoned by the birds, and concludes that loss of nesting habitat in the area is probably the cause of the decreased population of the birds in the overall area. We are tasked with finding an answer that would strengthen this causal claim. Good prephrases would probably evoke classic causal reasoning strategies, like eliminating an alternate cause, showing that where the cause is present the effect is also present, etc.

Answer choice (A): This answer might actually weaken the argument by presenting a possible alternate cause for the decreased population of mourning doves. Maybe it isn't a loss of habitat, but that they are now being hunted?

Answer choice (B): This is the correct answer choice. If it is true that the trees in the orchard that the doves abandoned where they only ones that they would want to nest in, this strengthens the claim that there has been an actual loss of habitat in the area. This answer thus eliminates a possible objection, that the doves could have nested somewhere else in the area, and that loss of habitat was therefore less likely to be a cause of their lower population. In essence, this answer means that there is now NO suitable habitat for the birds, and where the effect is present (fewer birds), the cause is also present (no habitat).

Answer choice (C): A tricky answer, one that looks a lot like "where the cause is present, the effect is also present." But is the effect present for Blue Jays? We don't know, because there is no indication that their population has actually decreased in the area! Answer B only confirms that another type of bird left the orchard, which does nothing to strengthen the claim that the loss of that habitat caused a drop in the local population.

Answer choice (D): Another tricky and attractive answer, some students will interpret this one as eliminating a possible alternate cause for the decline in population, a reduction in the local food supply. But it is not clear from this answer that the feeders actually are an important food supply for the birds, nor is it clear that the feeders are just as full as they were before the doves left the orchard. In any event, to the extent that this answer does appear to strengthen the argument, it does so far less than the correct answer, which guarantees that there is no longer any appropriate habitat for the doves.

Answer choice (E): An irrelevant answer, it does not matter where mourning doves often make their nests. This answer gives us no reason to believe that any significant loss of habitat has occurred, and it does not do anything to eliminate other possible causes of the decline in the local population of the birds.
 mpoulson
  • Posts: 148
  • Joined: Mar 25, 2016
|
#25999
Hello,

Can you explain why B is better than C? I thought that because Blue Jay had abandoned the orchid as well that supported the idea that the nesting habitat was disrupted by the new sprinklers. Essentially, why is this incorrect and why is B a better answer? Thank you.

V/r,

Micah
 Clay Cooper
PowerScore Staff
  • PowerScore Staff
  • Posts: 241
  • Joined: Jul 03, 2015
|
#26004
Hi Micah,

Thanks for your question.

Remember, our conclusion is about the entire area where the bird watcher is; not about these orchards specifically. Therefore, answer choice B, which explains how the new sprinklers led the birds to leave the whole area if it is true (because there were no other suitable trees in the area) does better to strengthen the conclusion than does C, which only clarifies that the sprinklers have the same effect on other bird species as well.

In other words, the bigger weakness in the argument is that the conclusion applies to the whole area, and not just the orchards, rather than the possibility that the sprinklers were not in fact the specific reason that the doves left the orchards. Answer choice B remedies the former, while C remedies the latter; therefore, B strengthens the argument more.
 Oneshot06
  • Posts: 21
  • Joined: Feb 07, 2018
|
#45052
Wow this question is awful. I liked B. and C. and ultimately went with C., because the sprinklers can be tied to be the common cause for mourning doves not being able to nest in orchard trees and therefore decline in population. I thought it was stronger than B. because if another type of bird was also affected in same way then the sprinklers are the common cause for the doves not being able to nest in the orchards. Could you please help me reason with B and C and how I can avoid making same mistake in future?
 Francis O'Rourke
PowerScore Staff
  • PowerScore Staff
  • Posts: 471
  • Joined: Mar 10, 2017
|
#45115
Hi Oneshot06

We need to strengthen the speaker's conclusion that the dove population decreased because of a loss of nesting habitat. The author showed that a part of their habitat was disturbed due to the installation of sprinklers in a nearby orchard. However, the speaker does not tell us that this habitat was necessary for sustaining the population of mourning-doves, and the speaker does not tell us that nothing else negatively effected the mourning-doves that could have caused the decrease in population.

Answer choice (B) comes very close to telling us that the trees were necessary: they were the only attractive ones in the entire area.
because the sprinklers can be tied to be the common cause for mourning doves not being able to nest in orchard trees and therefore decline in population.
This was a good good approach, but the information in answer choice (C) does not actually tell us anything new to tie the sprinklers to the decline in mouning-doves. We already knew how the mourning-doves were affected by the sprinklers. Learning that some other bird was affected in the exact same way does help the argument, unless you doubted the facts that the speaker already gave us.

You may be reading into answer choice (C) a bit too much. If this answer choice told us that the blue jay population declined because of the installation of sprinklers, and blue jays and mourning-doves are similar in their nesting needs, then this answer choice could strengthen the conclusion. However, we don't know what happened to the blue jay population in the area. It may have increased for all we know!

Let me know if this helps :-D
 Oneshot06
  • Posts: 21
  • Joined: Feb 07, 2018
|
#45135
Got it. Thanks Francis! :-D
 chance123
  • Posts: 10
  • Joined: Jun 27, 2020
|
#82812
Could you help me with the answer choice (D)? I still find it attractive because it eliminates an alternative that the population decrease as a result of lacking food supply.

The answer choice explicitly says that the food in the feeders- canola and wheat- are both appropriate seeds for mourning doves, so if residents fill their bird feeder with them, and the population of mourning birds still get diminished, it will be more likely that it is the sprinkler, rather than lacking food, that causes the birds' population decrease in this area. Could you tell me what's wrong with my reasoning?

Thank you in advance!
User avatar
 KelseyWoods
PowerScore Staff
  • PowerScore Staff
  • Posts: 1079
  • Joined: Jun 26, 2013
|
#82827
Hi chance123!

Answer choice (D) is tricky and can definitely be attractive. But it doesn't actually end up doing as much to eliminate an alternate cause as it seems to at first glance. Even if many residents fill their feeders with seeds that are appropriate for attracting mourning doves, we still don't know if the feeders and the seeds within them provide enough of a food source for the doves or if there are other aspects of the feeders that might keep the doves away. For example, maybe there are some feeders with appropriate seeds ("many" is not a specific number and the most we can assume from it is that "some" feeders have the seeds) but this still isn't enough of a food source to support the previous dove population size. Also, we do not know whether or not the number of feeders/amount of seeds placed in them has changed over time. Maybe they used to put out even more seed in more feeders and so even though many still fill their feeders with appropriate seeds, it is not as many as used to do so and so it could provide another explanation for the reduction of the dove population. Furthermore, even though they are filling the feeders with the appropriate seeds, that doesn't mean that the doves are actually eating the seed. Maybe the squirrels get to the seeds first and scare off the doves, meaning that the feeders don't really serve as a food source for the doves at all.

In sum, answer choice (D) doesn't strongly eliminate an alternate cause because we don't know for sure that the feeders are a food source for the doves nor do we know how significant of a food source it might be or if the amount of seed available has changed over time. Therefore, it is not nearly as strong of an answer choice as (B).

Hope this helps!

Best,
Kelsey
 chance123
  • Posts: 10
  • Joined: Jun 27, 2020
|
#82841
Beautiful! Crystal clear. Thank you, Kelsey!

Get the most out of your LSAT Prep Plus subscription.

Analyze and track your performance with our Testing and Analytics Package.