Logical reasoning PrepTest 157 · Section 2 · Question 3

Question prompt

Although there are immediate Remaining source text redacted.
Why the credited answer is right

Credited answer: E

The notes below walk through why it fits the stem and how to eliminate the rest.

Argument or Facts

Argument

Strategy Overview

Argument or facts for both speakers? Always argument Completing with a premise or conclusion? Check for the word preceding the blank space to see. "Because," "since," "for," "as," etc. = completing with a premise. Complete with a premise? Treat as a Strengthen question "Therefore," "thus," "hence," "so," etc. = completing with a conclusion Complete with a conclusion? Treat as a Must Be True question

Answer Anticipation

This Argument Completion question asks us to add the argument's conclusion — notice the author says, "We should conclude that use of these pesticides" right before the blank space we're asked to fill. Since we're completing this argument with a conclusion, we can treat it as a Must Be True question — the other, more common question type in which we take a set of facts and derive a valid conclusion. So, what must be true based on these facts? Well, there's clearly a distinction between short- and long-term use of these pesticides. They increase crop yields in the short term but decrease yields in the long term. So, let's pretend we're farmers, hop on an imaginary John Deere, and think about what we'd do with this information. Personally, I'd probably use these pesticides once or twice and then stop. After all, if I kept using them, I'd have fewer crops to sell. So, let's look for an answer choice that says the use of these pesticides "is only valuable in the short-term" or "not advisable for the long term" or something like that.

Answer choices

  1. A
    is uneconomic
    Why choice A is not credited

    This answer choice quite doesn't match our anticipation, so we can quickly discard it. After all, this answer choice is too bold to work as the conclusion of this argument. These pesticides can be economical in the short term, even if their long-term use isn't.

  2. B
    damages the environment
    Why choice B is not credited

    This answer choice doesn't match our anticipation, so we can toss it out. While these pesticides "gradually depress crop yield" in the long term, that doesn't necessarily mean they damage the environment. Even if we grant that agricultural crops can be considered "the environment" (a dubious stipulation in its own right), we don't know that pesticides necessarily reduce the total number of these crops. They initially increase the crop yield and then gradually reduce it "from the initially elevated level." Even after the reduction, the crop yield could still be higher than it would be without pesticides. Moreover, the pesticides could benefit the environment in other ways.

  3. C
    will eventually make pest Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice C is not credited

    This answer choice doesn't match our anticipation, so we can cross it off. Strangely, the passage never tells us whether the pesticides actually reduce the number of pests. Based on common-sense standards, it's probably OK to assume that the pesticides must reduce harmful pests at first since they initially increase crop yields. However, it's not OK to assume that crop yields decrease after long-term use because the pesticides stop reducing harmful pests. The crop yields could drop for some other reason — the pesticides could decrease the soil's fertility or damage the crops' roots, for instance. Therefore, this doesn't work as the argument's conclusion.

  4. D
    is probably not occurring Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice D is not credited

    This answer choice doesn't match our anticipation, so we can eliminate it. After all, we have no idea what the manufacturers' instructions say about using these pesticides. We don't know how farmers actually use these pesticides, either. We know that studies find that long-term use can decrease crop yields, but we don't know if any farmers are using these pesticides for a long time in a non-experimental setting. Perhaps the manufacturers only tell farmers to use the pesticides once, and the farmers use the pesticides for a long time anyway. But it's just as likely that the manufacturers don't instruct farmers to use the pesticides only once or that farmers don't use the pesticides for a long time. Since this conclusion can't be validly drawn from the facts, it doesn't work as the argument's conclusion.

  5. E
    gives financial returns that Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice E matches the stem

    Finally, an answer choice that matches our anticipation. We anticipated that the correct answer could say using these pesticides "is not advisable for the long term." This answer choice expresses a similar sentiment. If the pesticides gradually decrease crop yields in the long term, then farmers who continue to use the pesticides will not have as many crops to sell. If the farmers pay for the pesticides but continually produce fewer crops to sell, the pesticides' financial returns will diminish over time. Since this answer choice is a conclusion we can validly draw from the premises, this functions as an appropriate conclusion to this argument.

Question analytics

Based on historical answer selection rates for this question.

Answer choice distribution

  1. A 8%
  2. B 12%
  3. C 4%
  4. D 2%
  5. E Credited 75%

Deeper help

Ask follow-ups on any step

Optional AI tutor mode will let you interrogate assumptions, compare answers, and drill weak patterns without leaving the page.

Human-written explanations stay primary; AI is an add-on when you want it.

Discussion

No threads yet—be the first to ask a question or share an approach.

View all discussions Start a discussion