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Q15 - Often a type of organ or body

by jklein1233 Mon Dec 06, 2010 11:37 am

I'm having a bit of a unique issue with this question. I can't seem to understand what the question prompt means. More specifically, I don't see how the last sentence in it makes any sense.

"After all, whatever the difference of heritage and habitat, as organisms animals have fundamentally similar needs and so..."

We are then asked to select the answer that most logically completes the sentence. Without an understanding of what the question prompt was even saying, I wasn't able to select the right answer.

Was I alone on this or did other people not make sense of the question prompt?
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Re: Q15 - Often a type of organ or body

by noah Tue Dec 07, 2010 3:20 pm

This is a type of inference question - but it's a bit different than the usual "what must be true" sort in that the answer must "complete" the argument, which means it needs to tie together the premises. Look for wrong answers that only work with one premise.

To paraphrase, here the premises are:

1. A specific type of body part is often the only way to do something an animal needs to do.
2. So, different species can end up evolving the same body part (even though the species are unrelated).
3. This makes sense because species have the same needs, (regardless of their different evolutionary paths and different environmental factors - a fancy way of saying the animals are unrelated).

If you read it with an eye towards completing the argument, often the right answer is predictable. Here, it's (B), because this answer - that animals will develop the same body parts to satisfy their needs - ties together the premise that different animals have similar needs and the idea that different species will develop the same body part (because these different species have the same needs, and there may be only way way to satisfy these needs - a wing, for example).

(A) focuses on where species live, which strays from the focus on evolving body parts.

(C) is tempting - it's about the animals adapting, however it does not connect to the idea of the species evolving the same (or similar) adaptations.

(D) is out of scope - resemblance is not relevant.

(E) is too strong; ALL the animals will develop wings or eyes? What about worms?
 
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Re: PT61, S2, Q15 - Often a type of organ or body structure is

by ohsobecca Tue Dec 07, 2010 3:42 pm

haha I think it would have been clearer if LSAC had put in a comma:

"After all, whatever the difference of heritage and habitat, as organisms, animals have fundamentally similar needs and so..."

I mean, that's not grammatically correct but you need that pause there; I read it twice because I also found it a little confusing. If you have that pause, it becomes "as organisms, animals __do something__" and then you need to fill it in based on what they've told you. Is that what you meant when you said the last sentence seemed weird?
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Re: PT61, S2, Q15 - Often a type of organ or body structure is

by noah Tue Dec 07, 2010 3:50 pm

ohsobecca Wrote:haha I think it would have been clearer if LSAC had put in a comma:

"After all, whatever the difference of heritage and habitat, as organisms, animals have fundamentally similar needs and so..."

I mean, that's not grammatically correct but you need that pause there; I read it twice because I also found it a little confusing. If you have that pause, it becomes "as organisms, animals __do something__" and then you need to fill it in based on what they've told you. Is that what you meant when you said the last sentence seemed weird?

Good point! Last night a student was remarking on how she was not super excited about the grammar in Pt61, S4, Q10 either, (the part in parentheses).
 
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Re: PT61, S2, Q15 - Often a type of organ or body structure is

by jklein1233 Tue Dec 07, 2010 8:07 pm

Thanks, Noah. Yea, a comma there would've helped a lot as I see what the sentence is trying to say now. In a timed situation it was a bit tough to decipher but hopefully there won't be any unnecessarily complicated wording like this on the December exam.
 
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Re: PT61, S2, Q15 - Often a type of organ or body structure is

by gotomedschool Wed Dec 08, 2010 11:01 pm

I feel for you OP, I had to read that last sentence about 3 times before I understood what was going on. This isn't the first time where I've stopped to wonder, wait, shouldn't there be a comma there WTF?!
 
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Re: Q15 - Often a type of organ or body

by tplan21 Thu Feb 09, 2012 4:27 pm

noah Wrote:(C) is tempting - it's about the animals adapting, however it does not connect to the idea of the species evolving the same (or similar) adaptations.



I believe that C was wrong not because it didnt tie them together, since i think it does connect them:

....as organisms have fundamentally similar needs and so will develop adaptations allowing them to satisfy those needs.

But C is wrong because its uses the word "will".

The passage clearly starts off with "Often" a part develops in an animal at different times. Not that it "Always" does.

Answer choice B captures that with "will in many instances". Use of similar terms.

Hope that helps some!
 
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Re: Q15 - Often a type of organ or body

by sukim764 Wed Oct 03, 2012 11:47 pm

tplan21 Wrote:
noah Wrote:(C) is tempting - it's about the animals adapting, however it does not connect to the idea of the species evolving the same (or similar) adaptations.



I believe that C was wrong not because it didnt tie them together, since i think it does connect them:

....as organisms have fundamentally similar needs and so will develop adaptations allowing them to satisfy those needs.

But C is wrong because its uses the word "will".

The passage clearly starts off with "Often" a part develops in an animal at different times. Not that it "Always" does.

Answer choice B captures that with "will in many instances". Use of similar terms.

Hope that helps some!


Wow, that's very observant of you to catch that detail. Thanks!
 
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Re: Q15 - Often a type of organ or body

by ying_yingjj Wed Nov 26, 2014 4:04 pm

As so many people have contributed to this site, I would like to give back.

(B) gave us a lot of clue, although it threw me off when I was doing this question, I actually skipped it bc just got confused bc of the missing coma.

If the last sentence had the coma, actually you can see lot of clues:

It is an inference question, only choices A and B had indefinite terms "often" and "in many instances".

To crack the stimulus:

1. Accomplish a given task ---> depend only on organ or BS
2. Organ + BS EVOLVE in different species

1+2 ==>

Accomplish a given task ---> depend only on organ or BS --> Organ + BS EVOLVE in different species

3. so ____???___

B is the only answer has the EVOLVE

accomplish a given task = satisfy the needs

satisfy the needs ---> depend only on organ or BS --> Organ + BS EVOLVE in different species

so,

(if organism animals want to) satisfy thees needs ---> organism animals in many instances will EVOLVE

Make sense?

Although, why would "satisfy these needs" = "accomplishing a given task" ?

The question is not so well structured and worded, whoever wrote this question is a WTF.