Logical reasoning PrepTest 144 · Section 4 · Question 3

Incorrect. The stimulus clearly states that the safeguards and the witnessed increase in speed of population decline are from after the species is listed as endangered, so the amount of time it takes to get on the list in the first place is out of scope.

Incorrect. This doesn't provide any information about why these species would then start to lose population even faster after being listed as endangered.

Incorrect. This doesn't explain why some are losing population faster after being listed. If you thought that this might mean the protections are spread too thin and aren't effective, that may explain why the populations would still decline but not why that decline would speed up.

Correct. Argument or Facts:
Facts

Question Type:
Paradox

Stimulus Summary:
Listing a species as endangered puts protections into place, but there are cases where this results in a speeding up of population loss for those species.

Answer Anticipation:
Our first step in Paradox questions is always to clearly define the paradox. Here, how could putting legal protections into place designed to protect species result in those species seeing faster population declines?

Many Paradox questions will feature a change with an unexpected consequence. That's the case here—the listing of the species as endangered is designed to slow, stop, and reverse the population decline. However, in some cases, it has the opposite effect. When that's the case, there's something else going on—some other cause or explanation that explains the unintended outcome.

Our job is to find an answer that establishes this other factor that's related to the noted change—the listing of the species as endangered—but would cause its population to decrease.

Answer Explanation:
Listing a species as endangered would definitely make it seem rare. If this means collectors are more interested in them, then that could increase poaching and thus speed up population decline. This answer resolves the paradox.

Key Takeaway:
Paradox questions frequently bring up an unexpected consequence of a change. When that happens, the correct answer will generally highlight an aspect of that change that led to the unexpected outcome.

Incorrect. If anything, this suggests that the population declines shouldn't speed up as poachers have a hard time finding the species as their population declines—in fancy terminology, there isn't a positive feedback loop.