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I've read that I can't post the questions here, so I hope the above and the word rattlesnakes and anser E are enough to go on.

Go someone explain to me how this could possibly be the answer when it doesn't even discuss food in the original info?

Here's a full write-up: http://www.atlaslsat.com/forums/preptes ... -f105.html

But, to answer your question quickly, if E were not true (negated), then how would we be able to tell a rattlesnake's age? Perhaps the number of rattle sections would indicate the food situation.

One way to come to this is to consider this: if you saw 12 rattle sections, how would you know the snakes age? You would need the molting to be CONSISTENT, and, thus E is necessary.

(A) is sufficient -- i.e. it goes above and beyond.

Atlas LSAT Teacher wrote:Here's a full write-up: http://www.atlaslsat.com/forums/preptes ... -f105.html

But, to answer your question quickly, if E were not true (negated), then how would we be able to tell a rattlesnake's age? Perhaps the number of rattle sections would indicate the food situation.

One way to come to this is to consider this: if you saw 12 rattle sections, how would you know the snakes age? You would need the molting to be CONSISTENT, and, thus E is necessary.

(A) is sufficient -- i.e. it goes above and beyond.

I choose A. But how is food necessary to determine the answer?

Sry-just an honest question I have.

No sorry about it. Food is not necessary, but we do need a consistent relationship between the number of sections and the age. Another necessary answer might have been: "Rattlesnakes molts as frequently during years ending in odd numbers as even numbers." The point is that the molting/# of sections has a consistent relationship with time passing. If the snakes were to mold more frequently because of how much food is available, then how would we know how to interpret 12 sections? Would it be 12 sections because it's been 12 molts -- which happen once every ______ -- or is it because there was not a lot of food recently?

A is sufficient -- it would allow us to tell a rattler's age from the number of sections, but we don't need it to be that it molts once per year -- it could be once per month, week, etc.

Atlas LSAT Teacher wrote:No sorry about it. Food is not necessary, but we do need a consistent relationship between the number of sections and the age. Another necessary answer might have been: "Rattlesnakes molts as frequently during years ending in odd numbers as even numbers." The point is that the molting/# of sections has a consistent relationship with time passing. If the snakes were to mold more frequently because of how much food is available, then how would we know how to interpret 12 sections? Would it be 12 sections because it's been 12 molts -- which happen once every ______ -- or is it because there was not a lot of food recently?

A is sufficient -- it would allow us to tell a rattler's age from the number of sections, but we don't need it to be that it molts once per year -- it could be once per month, week, etc.

Interesting.

Thanks very much for your time/effort

I just went through this question again, and through the explanation on the link you gave as well, and honestly it's confusing. LOL.

The best I can get is that "if food variation effects the molts of the snake, then the number of rattles wouldn't be an accurate indication of the number of years a snake is, because food consumption may vary."

Does that sounds about right?

Yup, you got it.