The fishing industry cannot currently be relied upon to help the government count the seabirds killed by net fishing,...
odsimkinsMarch 10, 2020
Can you explain the question?
I'm confused by the question because it says: Which one of the following, if true, most strongly indicates that the government program would not BY ITSELF provide an accurate count of the seabirds killed by net fishing?
But nowhere in the passage is it even theorized that the government could provide an accurate count by itself, because the fishing industry is still turning in the dead birds caught in the net for the program to examine. Can you please explain?
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Or maybe not, maybe they could get the birds some other way but still, B, because it says "examine" sounds like its strengthening the argument by saying they just need to hand over a few birds to the program. Maybe I'm reading it wrong, can you please explain?
RaviMarch 10, 2020
@odsimkins,
Let's take a look at this question.
This is a tough argument to parse through because there are two intermediate conclusions in addition to the main conclusion.
Currently, sea fishermen have no incentive to help out the government by counting dead seabirds. However, we could give them a reason to do so if turning in bird carcasses provides them with valuable information about their fish. And, based on these pieces of information, the argument concludes that the government should institute a dead bird inspection program.
This question stem is essentially telling us to weaken the conclusion. As yourself: why might it be the case that this program would not be successful for providing us a picture of the dead birds and toxins in the fish eaten by them? The argument is hoping that we're able to get the fishermen to turn in all of the dead birds that they find so that in turn, they can learn about their fish. Any answer choice that makes this incentive weaker is a great pick for helping to weaken the conclusion as a whole.
(B) says, "The fishing industry could learn whether the fish it catches are contaminated with toxins if only a few of the seabirds killed by the nets were examined."
If the industry only needs a few seabirds to obtain the information they're looking for, why would they bother turning in the rest of the bird bodies that they find? They'd have no incentive to do so after they get the information they want, so (B) would weaken the conclusion that we'd get a bird count. Thus, (B) is the correct answer choice.
Does this make sense? Let us know if you have any other questions!
