Logical reasoning PrepTest 124 · Section 3 · Question 6

Incorrect. The Ornithologist notes how she attempted to avoid influencing the birds—watching them from a well-camouflaged blind. While it's possible that this didn't perfectly prevent her from being seen and thus influencing behavior, she doesn't simply assume that her presence didn't have an effect.

Incorrect. If they were animal sources of any kind, they weren't vegetation, and thus the specific nature of these foods isn't relevant.

Incorrect. If there's definitive evidence against a belief, that belief can be rejected without analyzing the evidence that led to it, so this isn't really a flaw.

Correct. Argument or Facts:
Argument

Valid or Flawed:
Flawed

Question Type:
Errors in Reasoning

Stimulus Summary:
O: Over half of what I saw birds eat in the morning from my blind was from animals, so they don't largely subsist on vegetation, as is widely believed.

Answer Anticipation:
This Ornithologist is reaching a general conclusion about a species of bird based on her observations. Whenever that's the case, there's a good chance that the scientist's observations aren't broad enough to justify the conclusion.

Here, it is noted that the scientist is basing her conclusions on observing "hundreds" of birds, which is a substantial sample size. However, these observations were all made from the same blind, and at the same time of day, so they may not represent the species generally, or the overall diet. If the population she viewed has different eating habits than the majority of the species (e.g., if the area doesn't have many consumable vegetation but plentiful insects), or if their diet shifts to vegetation later in the day, her conclusions wouldn't be warranted.

Let's find an answer that highlights one of these issues with the limitations on the observations.

Answer Explanation:
This answer highlights one of the limitations of the Ornithologist's study. She observed them only in the morning, leaving open the possibility that they shift over to eating only vegetation later in the day and thus skew their diet away from where her conclusion believes it is.

Key Takeaway:
An argument that's based on a single set of observations probably is limited in a way that would prevent a general conclusion from being validly drawn. If you can find a limitation stated in the argument itself, it's probably going to be related to the correct answer.

Incorrect. The conclusion is that the belief is erroneous, not that it has always been wrong, or that those who reached it did so based on bad information. Thus, whether it was true is out of scope.