Logical reasoning PrepTest 145 · Section 2 · Question 3

Incorrect. The argument would require this only if it established that wild honeybees weren't seeing a similar decline in population.

Incorrect. Solving/undoing the problem is out of the scope of the argument.

Incorrect. There doesn't need to be a continuing decline in genetic diversity—as long as it's an underlying factor in the population decline, it could have stabilized (or even improved a bit, as long as it's still bad enough to cause population decline).

Incorrect. If anything, this cuts against the argument by suggesting that limited genetic diversity isn't necessary for other causes to "devastate" honeybee populations.

Correct. Argument or Facts:
Argument

Valid or Flawed:
Flawed

Question Type:
Strengthen with Necessary Premise

Stimulus Summary:
There are a lot of immediate causes of honeybee declines, but decades of inbreeding have led to limited genetic diversity, so that's the long-term, underlying cause of declines.

Answer Anticipation:
This argument is interesting in that it deals in causality, but it brings up two layers of causality. On the immediate level, there are things like pesticide, disease, and mites, but that's not what the argument is about. Instead, it's about a "long-ignored underlying" cause—inbreeding.

The phrasing there is interesting and important—outside of bringing up an alternative cause, it also relates this to the other causes by calling it an "underlying" cause. That means that it's leading to all the other causes having the effect that they do.

What's the basis for the author's conclusion that this long-ignored cause is an underlying condition? Inbreeding can limit genetic diversity. However, the argument never connects that to population declines or being susceptible to the other immediate causes ("underlying" again suggesting that it is a factor in the immediate causes). The argument needs that connection to exist, so the correct answer should state that a lack of genetic diversity makes bees more susceptible to the noted immediate causes of population decline.

Answer Explanation:
This answer establishes a lack of genetic diversity as a relevant factor in other, immediate causes of population decline. If a lack of genetic diversity can't make honeybees susceptible to adverse conditions, then it can't serve as an underlying cause of them and the conclusion falls apart.

Key Takeaway:
When a causal conclusion isn't based on a correlation, it's usually flawed because it makes a jump between key terms. Here, the argument never established that genetic diversity was related to survival, or susceptibility to certain diseases, so the correct answer needed to do so.