Over the last thousand years, plant species native to islands have gone extinct at a much faster rate than have those...

BenMingov on April 22, 2020

Hi @pgeorge2017, thanks for reaching out.

We are trying to strengthen this argument.

The passage states that over the past 1000 years, island plant species have been going extinct at a much faster rate than mainland plant species. Biologists think this is because they haven't adapted to large land mammal eating them, while the mainland plants have. Also, large land mammal populations arise usually once human colonization of an island has already occurred.

Answer choice D is stating that island native plants species will experience a dramatically increased extinction rate after human colonization. This is in line with the biologists' current theory. That human colonization is often the first step prior to large land mammal populations, followed by extinction of non-adapted plants.

I hope this helps. Please let me know if you have any other questions or would like me to elaborate further.

lxnxrd19 on December 8, 2020

I thought D was too strong from dramatically increase, I thought c was correct because commercial developmena came from human colonization. where did I go wrong?

lxnxrd19 on December 8, 2020

I thought in MBT questions strong answer choices tended to be wrong?

Emil-Kunkin on June 26, 2023

Hi, C is incorrect because we have no idea about commercial development, and the mechanism described in the passage isn't habitat loss. While it is harder to prove a strong answer choice, that doesn't mean one isn't correct, if the burden of proof has been met which it has here.