It can be inferred that the authors would be most likely to disagree about which one of the following?

kristinsmith04 October 21, 2019

Why B over C?

I don't think the author of passage A thinks the threat to furbearers is necessarily very serious, as he/she notes some declines, but prefaces by saying that impacts on wildlife are not all that well substantiated. So, I did not go with B. C seems pretty good to me - B agrees with it (I think) and I think A would be inclined to disagree, though I suppose there isn't DIRECT evidence for this. Is that where I went wrong? In any case, why is B the answer?

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BenMingov November 13, 2019

Hi Kristinsmith04, thanks for the question!

Answer choice B states "the threat posed by purple loosestrife to local aquatic furbearer populations is serious". The two authors explicitly disagree about this point.

Author A states in lines 10-13, "Impacts on wildlife have not been well studied, but serious reductions in waterfowl and aquatic furbearer productivity have been observed". This would agree with the statement given in answer choice B.

Author B states in lines 55-58, "The impact of purple loosestrife on fur bearing mammals is discussed at great length, though none of the species highlighted...can be considered threatened in North America". This disagrees with answer choice B.

The issue with answer choice C is that while author B would likely agree with this point, we simply do not know what author A thinks about this. Yes, they seem to genuinely care, but we do not know if they agree or disagree with the statement that "most people who advocate...are not genuine in their concern". We always need to be on the lookout for answer choices in which one of the views is unknown.

Hope this helps!

Andrew January 21, 2021

@Ben, regarding passage B (lines 55-58), is the seriousness inferred because it is discussed at great length?