#19 - Last winter was mild enough to allow most bird

[180bound]

Hi, I guessed C on this one because it seemed most "LSAC-y" but I am just not convinced of the logic that was used to get there.

We are essentially tasked with strengthening a causal conclusion but to me C just provides a POSSIBLE correlation. I get that with strengthen questions we just need something to strengthen the argument to the slightest degree.

I get how the weather would CAUSE birds to feed at feeders more (given that information is granted to the stimulus) but to say that them eating at feeds CAUSES their population to grow because they are less susceptible to predators????? I can see how one could make the argument that their population wouldn't necessarily DECREASE because they are less susceptible to predators to but make the argument that their decreased susceptibility CAUSES their population to grow to me makes no sense, who's to say the population just doesn't grow at all because the lack of predators allows them to just maintain their current population? That being said, to me, the causal chain that would allow one to conclude that the weather causes larger population makes no sense....Could someone help me with this?

[Adam Tyson]

We aren't looking to prove the causal claim in this Strengthen question, 180bound, but only to help it along a little bit. In the stimulus, we learned that birds were not as dependent on feeders because they were able to forage naturally, and the conclusion was that the mild winter (which allowed for that feeding pattern) caused the higher bird population. Why? What is it about foraging naturally that has anything to do with the size of the bird population? Answer C makes that connection for us. It tells us why foraging naturally and avoiding feeders might mean more birds surviving than usual.

Also, you seem to have interpreted the stimulus as saying that the bird population has grown, but that's not what it says. It says the winter population is larger than usual. That means that the population has not been reduced as much as it usually is in the winter, because predators are not as much of a factor, and also because fewer birds migrated south. Not that it has grown, but only that it has not shrunk as much as it typically does.