By dating fossils of pollen and beetles, which returned after an Ice

By dating fossils of pollen and beetles, which returned after an Ice Age glacier left an area, it is possible to establish an approximate date when a warmer climate developed.

In one glacial area, it appears from the insect record that a warm climate developed immediately after the melting of the glacier.
From the pollen record,

however, it appears that the warm climate did not develop until long after the glacier disappeared.

Each one of the following, if true, helps to explain the apparent discrepancy EXCEPT:

(A) Cold-weather beetle fossils can be mistaken for those of beetles that live in warm climates.
we got mistaken due to cold beetles as they returned even before warm climate developed. thus explains the paradox.

(B) Warm-weather plants cannot establish themselves as quickly as can beetles in a new environment.
(since beetles can establish themselves quickly they return to the areas immediately after the glacier gets removed whereas warm plants are sensitive so they wait till the weather is completely warm according to their need.)

(C) Beetles can survive in a relatively barren postglacial area by scavenging.
same as B. one can survive and another cant and B says what cant and C explains what can.

(D) Since planes spread unevenly in a new climate, researchers can mistake gaps in the pollen record as evidence of no new overall growth.
(We are mistaken to think that plants dont grow till some time after glacier but it is not so.)

(E) Beetles are among the oldest insect species and are much older than many warm-weather plants.
age does not explain anything regarding the paradox therefore E is the answer.

The answer is E.

It is completely out of context, we don't care about the evolution of beatles v/s plants. Therefore is easy to catch it as the exception.

E actually hepls to establish the reasoning i.e. after glacial melted then the plants started to develop.whereas beetels were already there.
According to me it should be C.

Kindly explain

E actually hepls to establish the reasoning i.e. after glacial melted then the plants started to develop.whereas beetels were already there.
According to me it should be C.

Kindly explain

This info in E is not regarding the existence of beetles/plants before or after glacier meltinn event.
This info is general truth regarding their life. E means to say that regarding life on earth
Beetles arrived earlier than many warm-weather plants.
This does not help us in anyway to deal with paradox.

C otherwise explains that since beetles can survive in a relatively barren postglacial area by scavenging they arrived even before warm climate developed. This addresses paradox.

Remember this is an except question.

Actually, I just scan through all answers and only answer E is irrelevant. I thought that in real test, this question will consume our energy to think about correct answer. So, I did my technique by spotting incorrect answer

(E) Beetles are among the oldest insect species and are much older than many warm-weather plants.

Classifying beetles among which kind of insect is not relevant to the argument here.
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Let's look at the question stem here. The points known to us are:
Approximate date for when a warmer climate developed can be taken out by dating Fossils of pollen and beetles. Beetle fossils show that warm climate developed immediately after melting of the glacier. Pollen fossils show that warm climates developed after a relatively longer time.

Now let's look at the options to understand -
A) Cold-weather beetle fossils can be mistaken for those of beetles that live in warm climates.
- Yes, this explains the discrepancy in results. The beetle taken into consideration might be a beetle from a warmer climate, which would suggest that the warm climate developed immediately.
B) Warm-weather plants cannot establish themselves as quickly as can beetles in a new environment.
- If warm weathers do not establish themselves quickly enough, it might seem that the warm climate happened sometime after the glacier melted.
C) Beetles can survive in a relatively barren postglacial area by scavenging.
- I find this to be a trap option. But, if beetles scavenge, its might seem that the warmer climate developed immediately after the glacier melted; whereas the beetle might have scavenged and survived for a longer time.
D) Since planes spread unevenly in a new climate, researchers can mistake gaps in the pollen record as evidence of no new overall growth.
- Explains why researchers could have mistaken the gaps and caused a discrepancy.

Now we're left with only E. So, there can't be any other option left. The other options support the paradox. E has to be the only outlier.

I am unable to unable to understand option d, can anybody please help.

We can date beetles and pollen fossils to find when warm weather came in after an ice age.
Beetle record shows that a warm climate developed immediately after the melting of the glacier.
Pollen record shows that the warm climate did not develop until long after the glacier disappeared.

We can explain this discrepancy in many ways. Choose an option that DOES NOT explain it.

(A) Cold-weather beetle fossils can be mistaken for those of beetles that live in warm climates.

This explains. Beetle record could be that of cold weather beetles and hence could have been found much sooner.

(B) Warm-weather plants cannot establish themselves as quickly as can beetles in a new environment.

Explains. Beetles come back much more quickly and establish themselves. Warm weather plants could take much longer.

(C) Beetles can survive in a relatively barren postglacial area by scavenging.

Explains. Beetles can survive in barren lands so they could have established themselves much before plants.

(D) Since plants spread unevenly in a new climate, researchers can mistake gaps in the pollen record as evidence of no new overall growth.

Plants spread unevenly in a new climate (they could grow slowly for a while and then spread rapidly later and then slowly again for a while or they could grow in only one small area for a while and later spread etc) so there could be gaps in pollen record. This could explain why no pollen record may have been found even though there may have been plant growth much earlier.

(E) Beetles are among the oldest insect species and are much older than many warm-weather plants.

Irrelevant. When beetles and warm weather plants evolved initially is irrelevant. We are talking about when they re-populated melted glacier areas.

Answer (E)

The statement that does not help explain the apparent discrepancy between the insect and pollen records is (E) Beetles are among the oldest insect species and are much older than many warm-weather plants.

The reason why (E) does not explain the discrepancy is that the age of beetles compared to warm-weather plants does not provide any information about the timing of the development of a warmer climate. The age of a species does not necessarily correlate with the timing of climate change or the establishment of a warm climate. Therefore, this statement does not address the issue of why the insect record indicates an immediate warm climate while the pollen record suggests a delayed development of a warm climate.

Answer choices call for far too many assumptions. E should be as good of an explanation for the discrepancy as any other choice. By suggesting that beetles are far older than warm weather plants, there is a valid scenario posited that this particular glacial area may have melted far enough back in the past that warm weather plants simply didn't develop and thus the pollen record wouldn't count for anything.

Answer choice C at the very least, is as viable a candidate as E. But mostly, I am not really convinced by any of these choices; all of them under various scenarios can serve as viable explanations for the discrepancy.

Ritik25

I'd be very wary of questioning an official LSAT problem. These things get very well-reviewed, and we have a an objection, it's rarely the problem that is wrong!

In this case, we can't assume from E that because beetles are older than other insects and MANY warm-weather plants, then warm-weather beetles existed before ANY warm-weather plants we'd be looking at. E really tells us nothing about the development of the beetles and plants described in the premises, so it does nothing at all to resolve the discrepancy. (And to get real-world for a minute, if we look back at history, we're not going to see a period of warm weather in which ANIMALS existed but NO PLANTS existed. That simply isn't possible.)
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