A population of game ducks at a western lake contains 55 males to every 45 females, while a population of game ducks ...

LillCarr on June 21, 2020

Did not know where to start

Can you please break down this question??

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shunhe on June 28, 2020

Hi @Cammy,

Thanks for the question! Let’s just take it one step at a time, starting off by figuring out what the stimulus is telling us. Overall, there’s a western lake that has a 55:45 male-to-female ratio. Then, there’s an Eastern lake with a 65:35 male-to-female ratio. Then we’re told that older ducks have way more males than females. And since we know this, we can also tell that the bigger the difference in overall sex ratios, the higher the percentage of older male ducks in the population.

Now we’re asked for something that can be inferred from the passage; in other words, this is a Must Be True question. OK, well, let’s take a look at the last sentence again and see if we can come up with a pre-phrase. The bigger the difference in overall sex ratios, the higher the percentage of older male ducks in the population. Well, we know that the western lake has a 55:45 ratio, and the eastern lake has a 65:35 ratio. Well, since the eastern lake has a bigger difference in overall sex ratios, it’s going to have a higher percentage of older male ducks in the population. And taking a look at answer choice (A), this is exactly what it states. It tells us that the western lake has a lower percentage of adult males than the population at the eastern lake. Since this is directly supported by the information in the passage, (A) is the correct answer.

Hope this helps! Feel free to ask any other questions that you might have.

John on August 26 at 10:37PM

Wow! This makes total sense now. This question was tough.

John on August 26 at 10:41PM

Interesting though how the passage is written. "Non-Adult female game ducks". Female baby ducks would be much easier to work with.

Emil-Kunkin on August 27 at 03:13PM

I agree it's strange, but I think it's actually more accurate. There may be different categories of ducks (hatchlings, adolescent, baby, etc) and rather than listing them all, it's likely more efficient to just exclude adult ducks.