Q26 - Kim: The rapidly growing world

[theaether]

Stuck between B and D.

From their statements, Hampton clearly agrees with B's reasoning, since he is pro-technology. But why can't he also agree with the statement in D? He does concede that some non-zero portion of the world's land will have to be devoted to agriculture in the future, although he qualifies it with "without significantly increasing." I feel that having him believe that that extra land going to agriculture would mean less land for and erosion of wildlife habitats is as much of a stretch as having Kim agree with "B" that getting better technology would be a great thing.

Sorry if my question is worded in a really confusing way, I'm not sure how else to ask it. But otherwise, could you please address the correctness of "B" and how "D" is wrong? thank you!

[giladedelman]

Great question!

I partly agree with you: (B) is not a good answer. In fact, in my completely unofficial, unscientific opinion, I wouldn't expect to see such a weak answer on a modern LSAT -- they seem to have gotten more rigorous with the "identify the disagreement" (or in this case, the agreement) questions.

HOWEVER, I still was able to pick the right answer here. How? Well, looking at (D), we simply have no idea -- zero, none -- how Hampton would respond to this. He says the percentage of land devoted to agriculture will not significantly increase. That means it might increase just a little bit, or it won't increase at all. Either way, he doesn't weigh in whatsoever on what will happen to wildlife habitats and forests. Maybe agriculture will expand slightly, but it will eat into urban areas, for example. He simply does not address this point in any way. (Kim would of course agree with it.)

(B) is a little better. We can tell that Hampton would agree because he comments approvingly on "the promise of technology" to solve the population/land problem. It's a little less clear that Kim would agree, since she doesn't address technology and doesn't explicitly state her feelings on the phenomenon she describes. But, if we take "threaten our natural resources" to be something she's not happy about, then we can infer that she would welcome research that would allow more food to be produced without using up more land.

Does that make sense?

[shodges]

Great explanation I had basically the same question.

[joseph.carroll.555]

Stuck between B and D.
I feel that having him believe that that extra land going to agriculture would mean less land for and erosion of wildlife habitats is as much of a stretch as having Kim agree with "B" that getting better technology would be a great thing.

My thoughts exactly. Just because she thinks something is a threat doesn't mean she is likely to agree that continued research into better technology and more efficient agricultural practices would be beneficial. For instance, she might think that all of our research efforts should be directed towards studies on the feasibility of population control measures, or towards studies to determine whether purchasing private land to convert to wildlife reserves is a potential solution.

[ottoman]

Can someone explain why C is not a credited response?

Really appreciate your help....

[ohthatpatrick]

I'm with all of you in hating on this question. It's not very tightly written. It does, however, seem like many people are hoping that they can PROVE the correct answer would be something both authors would agree with.

The question stem just asks which answer choice has the MOST support when it comes to inferring the speakers' agreement.

(A) The easiest way to get rid of this one is by considering how much it goes against Hampton's thoughts. He believes that population growth will be FINE, as far as food needs go, and he's also NOT worried about needing more land for agriculture.

(B) Correct.
This is a weak claim. In order to support the idea that someone "would think something is beneficial", that something just needs to bring about a result that someone would find positive or counteract a result that someone thinks would be negative.

Kim - growing pop + demands of food producers threatens our natural resources (negative) because more food demands more land from natural resources. (B) matches topics Kim mentioned, such as 'demands of food producers' ("more efficient agricultural practices", "producing more food on less land").

Hampton - he mentions the promise of technology (positive) and is specifically referring to "improvements in agriculture" taking place without using significantly more land for agriculture.

(C) This is a very strong claim (harder to support) because it says certain areas need to be protected from urban encroachment. Hampton doesn't even address urban areas so it's hard to support the idea that he believes something NEEDS to be done about them. Also, this mentions a specific way of addressing the population growth problem: prepare urban areas for greater population density. Neither person discussed that.

(D) This is quite tempting. However, saying that pop. growth "will continue" to erode/diminish wildlife and forests implies that it already has. Neither Kim nor Hampton implies anything about what population growth has already done. Hampton, moreover, is optimistic that technology will allow us to make more food from the same land, so the gist of his comments goes against the idea of continuing to take up more land for agriculture. Finally, Hampton never discusses wildlife or forests, so that level of specificity has NO support in his statements.

(E) Again, extreme. The human diet needs to be modified requires strong support, yet neither person talked about changing the human diet.

The extreme nature of (A), (C), and (E) ('should', 'need', and 'needs', respectively) makes them hard to support. In order to support a claim as strong as those, you need VERY explicit, strong support.

(B) makes a comparatively wishy-washy claim ... it's basically just saying, "Would these two agree that X would be a good thing?" Sure! Kim is worried about something that X would help fix. Hampton is telling Kim that stuff like X is coming around the corner to help us out.

(D) has pessimism all over it. That sounds way more like Kim than like Hampton. It even uses keywords that ONLY she used, such as "wildlife" and "forests".

Hope this helps.

[Mab6q]

I hated this question, because how often do you see a question that asks for the answer that both speakers agree too, and there is no clear cut answer choice.

Having said that, I do think when you have two very bad answer choices, it's always good to go with the safer choice. It's easier to see how Kim would think such research would be beneficial than to see Hampon agreeing that habitats will erode and forests will diminish.