PT 54, SECT 2, Q24 Forum

[brinicolec]

Help?

Literally none of the answers seemed good to me. I looked at Manhattan Prep's forum/everyone's differing explanations of why A is right and decided the best explanation was that it eliminates a counter-argument that even though the diet would help with methane, it would lower meat/milk quality. Is that the reasoning you all agree is correct?

[etramak]

I remember doing this for the first time and thinking it was one of the hardest LR questions I've ever come across, so I'm glad you've brought me back to it. The reason I found it so difficult was because I kept obsessing over the details of the middle two premises and found nothing that strengthened them in the answers. This was a huge problem because the answer is derived from the first sentence of the stimulus.

Why is the cow population growing? Because it needs to keep up with the demand for meat and milk. What does an increasing cow population result in? More methane. More cows = more methane. This isn't written but it is a connection that needs to be made.

Answer (A) tells us that not only does a good quality diet cause cows to produce less methane, it also causes cows to produce much more meat and milk. Therefore, less cows are needed to meet the demand.

The stimulus just says that good diets = less methane from each cow.

With this answer we see that good diets also = less cows = even less methane.

[brinicolec]

I remember doing this for the first time and thinking it was one of the hardest LR questions I've ever come across, so I'm glad you've brought me back to it. The reason I found it so difficult was because I kept obsessing over the details of the middle two premises and found nothing that strengthened them in the answers. This was a huge problem because the answer is derived from the first sentence of the stimulus.

Why is the cow population growing? Because it needs to keep up with the demand for meat and milk. What does an increasing cow population result in? More methane. More cows = more methane. This isn't written but it is a connection that needs to be made.

Answer (A) tells us that not only does a good quality diet cause cows to produce less methane, it also causes cows to produce much more meat and milk. Therefore, less cows are needed to meet the demand.

The stimulus just says that good diets = less methane from each cow.

With this answer we see that good diets also = less cows = even less methane.

See, I thought about that answer but I was worried that it was a stretch and I think it was because I was focused more on the conclusion regarding methane. Definitely one of the harder questions. I rarely run into questions where I feel like every AC is wrong

[etramak]

The conclusion is still (and always is) important though! I don't have it in front of me but I think here its basically 'good diets will keep methane in check". The stimulus says that good diets will decrease the methane produced per cow but as far as I can remember it doesn't even say by how much. It could be a trivial amount. Answer A, subtly, says methane will be decreased in an additional way (less cows). This gives us greater reason to believe methane will in fact be kept in check.

[brinicolec]

The conclusion is still (and always is) important though! I don't have it in front of me but I think here its basically 'good diets will keep methane in check". The stimulus says that good diets will decrease the methane produced per cow but as far as I can remember it doesn't even say by how much. It could be a trivial amount. Answer A, subtly, says methane will be decreased in an additional way (less cows). This gives us greater reason to believe methane will in fact be kept in check.

Yeah, I figured that might be why.

Hate this question though!