Q10 - Fishery officials are still considering options

[bethany.pickett]

I dont understand how answer choice C is supported. I eliminated it down to C and E (which also is a bad answer), but ultimately chose E because I thought the whole reason they wanted to eliminate pike, which preys on trout and salmon was because trout and salmon is essential to the local economy and tourism .

Any clarification is appreciated!

[shaun_79]

I had a little trouble with this at first but the answer jumped out at me after a quick second reading.

The stimulus said "officials are still considering options for eliminating" the pikes from the lake. Think about it, if the poison added to the lake four years ago was successful in ridding the lake of the pikes, there would be no pikes; hence, no reason to be considering options to rid the lake of them. So the fact that they are "still considering options for eliminating" pikes is clear evidence that pikes were not eliminated by the poison four years ago.

HTH

[fmuirhea]

It's not quite guaranteed that the pike weren't eliminated (perhaps the native population was completely wiped out, then outside pike were somehow introduced following said elimination), but since this is an MSS question and not an MBT question, it's still the best answer. The fact that the pike are still a topic of discussion indicates strongly that they were not completely eradicated previously.

The passage indicates that the tourism economy suffered as a result of the lake poisoning, but not that salmon and trout are essential to the region's economy. In fact, the incorrect answer choices contain several strong words/phrases that are in this case not supported by the passage.

(A) would not
(B) only
(D) did not consider any options other than
(E) essential

[shirley.li_]

Can someone please explain why B is wrong? I figured that since they tried poison 4 years ago and there were negative consequences as a result (outraged local residents, tainted water) that that meant they never tried to use poison again after that...

[GeneW]

Can someone please explain why B is wrong? I figured that since they tried poison 4 years ago and there were negative consequences as a result (outraged local residents, tainted water) that that meant they never tried to use poison again after that...

It's possible they have tried using poison prior to four years ago. The stimulus did not provide any information if that was the "only time" or first time they have used poison.

[christine.defenbaugh]

Some really excellent thoughts here! Let me see if I can tie them all together.

On Inference questions, we must treat the stimulus as a list of trusted facts, and the correct answer choice will be fully supportable from those facts. fmuirhea is absolutely correct that because this is a "most strongly supported" inference question, the answer does not need to be 100% mathematically provable - just extremely likely!

Inference questions are hard to predict, because the correct answer may hinge on only a small portion of the giving fact set. Here, shaun_79 adeptly notes that two particular facts support the correct answer:

1) that poison was used 4 years ago to attempt to eliminate the pike, and
2) that fishery officials are still considering options to eliminate the pike.

While this does not strictly guarantee that the poison was unsuccessful, it sure is likely. In fact, we have to work rather hard to make up a plotline where it isn't successful (the poison completely eliminated the pike, then somehow in the space of four years, the pike was reintroduced and is now a threat....again...).

This answer is very strongly supported by the combination of those two facts!


The Unsupportable
(A) We know only that draining the lake has been ruled out, and that the poison caused the tourism economy to suffer. We have no information about what draining the lake would or would not cause!

(B) We know poison was used 4 years ago, and we know the locals got really mad, but there's no indication that this was the only time it happened. As GeneW astutely points out above, they might have tried poison multiple times in the distant past. In fact, they might have also tried it last year! Just because it made people mad doesn't mean they won't do it again. Maybe the fishery officials don't really care if they make the locals mad.

(D) We only know they used poison 4 years ago. We're given no information at all about what they did or did not consider before choosing poison at that point.

(E) If this were true, it might be an explanation for why people might be so concerned about eliminating the pike. But we have no evidence for this. We only know that 1) fishery officials want to eliminate the pike and 2) the pike could threaten salmon and trout. There's no direct connection in any of this to the region's economy.



I hope this makes this question a bit clearer! Please let me know if I missed anything!

[kyuya]

I'll take a shot at eliminating why (E) is wrong and (C) is right for those who may have chosen (E) like I did.

I think my issue with this question was that I thought of the question too narrowly when I eliminated (C) and selected (E) incorrectly.

(C) states that poison added into the lake four years ago didn't get rid of the fish. When I initially did this question, I thought there was no proof for this. The effects of poison to the lake were twofold (1) water remained tainted, (2) tourism economy suffered. I thought that perhaps poison did indeed get rid of the pike, but was also so destructive otherwise it was not a viable option. However, as Christine pointed out above the very fact that they continue to look for a solution and tell you they had to stop it does indeed mean that poison added was not successful in ridding the lake of Pike.

Does this mean that poison didn't kill a bunch of pike? I don't think so (correct me if I'm wrong). But if it was not a viable option for other reasons, and had stop being used, then that does indeed mean that it was not successful in ridding the lake of pike!

(E) is what I went with through process of elimination. In retrospect, essential is too strong of a word and is not supported. Just because tourism took a hit doesn't mean it is directly because of salmon and trout, and furthermore economy suffering does not equate to essential. Maybe if it said "the economy fell apart" this would be better.

[JudyW377]

I think the clearest support for (C) is that the first sentence indicates the officials are still considering options to eliminate pikes. This implies that the pikes still exist in the lake now, proving that the poison did not succeed in eliminating the pikes four years ago.