Q7 - The fishing industry cannot currently

[momolaw]

I am having somewhat difficult time identifying the conclusion for this stimulus-could the main argument be the the government should institute a program since the fishing industry cannot be relied upon to help the government?

thank you

[tommywallach]

Hey Momo,

While it's NOT safe to always use the word "therefore" to locate the conclusion, in this case, that word DOES signal the conclusion (and if nothing else, it's always a good place to start):

Conclusion: The government should institute this toxic bird plan

Premise: Fishing Industry won't count bird themselves; this plan will make fishing industry count birds

The big problem with this argument is that it seems like a really complicated way to get the birds counted. Why not just go around the fishing industry and count the birds some other way?

(A) The argument says that the fishing industry would like this plan because they could study the birds to find out about toxins in the fish. To that end, it would be BETTER if the birds ate all of the fish in question. This weakens the argument.

(B) It might strengthen a little to know that a similar plan worked in the past, but all we know here is that the government tried before. Did they succeed? Did they fail? We don't know.

(C) This strengthens the argument. If there's no way to get a count of dead birds without the fishing industry playing along, we definitely need to find a way to get them to play along. The toxic bird plan would work.

(D) This would weaken the argument a LOT, because now the fishing industry is unlikely to help, as we know they don't want a restriction of net fishing.

(E) This is reversed logic. We don't care what happens after net fishing is restricted; we need to know if net fishing OUGHT to be restricted.

Hope that helps!

-t

[mimimimi]

I somehow read the core this way:

The government should institute THIS particular program BECAUSE it is EFFECTIVE (more effective than fishing industry doing it alone).

There I went on to find strengtheners for the "effectiveness" of the plan. So I found B attractive and totally missed C. While I now agree C makes much more sense, was my understanding of the core wrong?

[Mab6q]

I really struggled with this one so I'm going to break it down.

Argument Core:

The industry needs to know whether the fish it catches are contaminated with toxins.

Intermediate conclusion: the industry would then have a reason to turn in bird carcasses

Conclusion: the government should institute such a program, under which tissue samples from the dead birds are examined to determine the amount of toxins in the fish eaten by the birds.

Possible Gaps: How do we know that the industry will report to the government because it needs to know whether its fish is contaminated; maybe they have another way of finding out. Why should the government do this, because it's the only way to count the fish, or it's the most effective way?

Regardless, we want to strengthen the argument the the government should rely on the industry to help count the birds by determining the amount of toxins, since that would give them a reason to help.

a. If we know that all of the fish are not eaten by the birds, then it provides a reason why the industry would not cooperate. Weakens.

b. just because they haven't done it in the past it doesn't mean they should do it now.

c. tells us that for the government to gain an accurate count of the seabirds killed --> the fishing industry must cooperate. Tells us that the government needs to do this. If it must rely on the industry in order to count the birds, then this supports the plan to use the tissue samples.

d. if it would restrict fishing, why would the industry follow along. Not what we want.

e. this is not very helpful because the sufficient condition is not established.

I had my reservations about C at first because just because the government needs to do it, it doesn't mean it will be successful. In other words the necessary condition (industry cooperate) will not guarantee the sufficient condition (accurate count). Nonetheless it's our best answer choice.

[keane.xavier]

I believe that there are two major assumptions that the author relies on in making his argument, and if you understand these assumptions, this question is much easier. Here they are:

First and foremost, the author assumes that the fishing industry doesn’t already know whether the fish it catches are contaminated with toxins. Perhaps the fishing industry already knows whether or not the fish it catches are contaminated. If this is the case, then the program wouldn’t have any impact, and the industry wouldn’t have any additional reason to turn in the dead bird carcasses. An answer choice that would affirm that the fishing industry doesn’t know whether or not the fish it catches are contaminated would strengthen the argument, suggesting that they would, indeed, have a reason to turn the fish in and that the government should implement the program.

Conversely, the author also assumes that the government cannot obtain an accurate count of dead seabirds without obtaining it from the fishing industry. Perhaps the government could obtain an accurate count of dead seabirds by other methods that don’t involve the fishing industry. If this is the case, then they wouldn’t need to implement a program that relies on the fishing industry providing an accurate count of dead seabirds. Thus, an answer choice that would affirm that the government can only obtain an accurate count of dead seabirds from the fishing industry would strengthen the author’s argument, suggesting that they should implement the program.

Answer choice (C) affirms the second assumption.

I hope this helps!