Q11 - The everyday behavior of whales

[julia.lynch]

I had some trouble with this question; I marked C because I thought it was an example of how introducing novel stimuli would not cause whales to behave in an unusual way. Can someone explain to me why B is correct?

Thank you!

[christine.defenbaugh]

Thanks for posting, julia.lynch! You're looking for the right thing, but you're running into troubling in applying that to the answer choices.

For this Necessary Assumption question, let's break down the core first:

PREMISE:
1) Whales behave differently with divers around
2) Whales are used to sea lions
CONCLUSION: Using sea lions to film whales would let biologists study the normal behavior of whales

You've already identified the gap here - this argument assumes that adding in cameras/training/etc won't change the behavior of whales. Since the whales act abnormally with 'novel stimuli', in order to make sure they behave normally, we also need the sea lions to act like their everyday selves.

But (C) doesn't actually tell us anything directly about the behavior of either the sea lions OR the whales. All it tells us is that the sea lions won't be aware of the cameras. We have no information about how awareness relates to behavior.

It would be easy for us to make an assumption that if the sea lions aren't aware, they won't behave weirdly, but that's something that we - the readers - have to add in.

If we negate (C), then the sea lions would be aware - but again, that doesn't necessarily mean they would behave any differently!

(B), however, points directly to behavior. This answer essentially says that the sea lions in this situation will behave normally. That's exactly what we need! If we negate this, it means that the sea lions would behave in unusual ways, and that would turn them into a 'novel stimulus' - the very thing the biologists are trying to avoid. So, we absolutely need the sea lions to behave normally for this argument to stand a chance.

Let's take a brief look at the other incorrect answers.
(A) We don't need the whales to act aggressively for this argument to work - the point is that they behave abnormally with divers, it doesn't matter what that abnormal behavior is. Plus, the premises already told us they behave abnormally.

(D) This would certainly be an added bonus to the sea lion filming, but we don't *need* this to be true. What we *need* is for the whales to act normally (and the sea lions to act normally).

(E) Who cares about what whales prefer? We need them to act normally, but we have no information about whether their preferences affect their behavior.


Great job on identifying the gap, but be extra vigilant when applying that to the answers: it's easy to add in unstated information to an answer (our own assumptions) to try to fit it into our prediction. You got the gap, but missed that (B) was the expression of your prediction.

Keep up the good work! Please let me know if this completely answers your question!