#8 - Few animals brave the midday heat of the Sahara desert

[Jkjones3789]

I am having difficulty with the Strengthen X question from the Supplemental Set. I was able to correctly identify the question I believe , however I was having difficulty in attacking or even identifying the conclusion ... I believe that the conclusion is the first sentence , Few animals brave the midday heat of the Sahara desert since the rest of the stem is supporting that statement ...

[Ron Gore]

Hi JK!

Good news! Your question sheds some light on a few issues that I think will help you quite a bit.

First, this is not a Strengthen-X question. It is a Resolve the Paradox-X question. That's why you're having trouble finding the conclusion - there isn't one! Instead, you have a stimulus that presents a somewhat surprising situation (i.e., the ant leaves its nest to hunt for food at a time when it can fall victim to the heat of the day) and the stem asks you to find an answer choice that helps explain why that happens. Of course, since this is an Except question, it is the four wrong answer choices that will help to resolve the paradox.

Next, even if this were a Strengthen-X question, I wouldn't recommend focusing your prephrase on what would attack the conclusion. Remember that the correct answer choice in a Strengthen-X question will be information that does not strengthen, meaning it may attack the conclusion or have no effect on it. For Strengthen-X questions, I find the best approach is to prephrase for the incorrect answer choices, which I know will have a direct effect on the conclusion, since each will strengthen it.

Your best prephrase for this question is that each of the four wrong answer choices will describe something that causes the silver ant to leave its nest during the heat of the day despite the danger it faces from the heat. See if that prephrase helps you slice through the answer choices.

Please let me know if I can help further!

Ron

[Sophia123]

Hi,

I got that this was a Resolve the Paradox Except question, but I selected answer C instead of E because I thought C really had no effect on the argument whereas E gives a reason for why silver ants might choose to leave their nest so that they could get light breezes by climbing onto vegetation - where did I go wrong on this one?

Thanks in advance!

Sophia

[Luke Haqq]

Hi Sophia,

Let's start with answer (C): "Other scavengers remove any remaining corpses as soon as the temperature begins to drop in the afternoon." If this were this case, it would allow the information in the stimulus to be true and even reinforce why that paradox (ants going out during midday heat despite the risk to themselves) exists. Namely, if (C) were true, it would suggest a reason that the do so is to get to the food before other scavengers, those scavengers that take away the remaining corpses when the temperature drops.

If answer (E) were true, "Silver ants cool themselves by climbing onto small pieces of dried vegetation to take advantage of random light breezes," it wouldn't quite explain their specific time-of-day behavior. If answer (E) stated that they demonstrated this cooling behavior during midday when they go out at risk to themselves, then it might be a contender for a resolve a paradox. Even then, it wouldn't quite explain why they risk danger. (E) would still need something like a fact that cooling behavior was necessary to the plants survival--that would explain why they risk danger during midday. However, since it doesn't have that extra material, answer (E) in it's original for doesn't resolve the paradox so it's the right answer.