Botanist: On the remote island of Tropica, it is known that early sett

Option D is "The selective cultivation of farmed plants over the past 10,000 years has led to few if any significant changes from the original variety." which means that selective cultivation has not led to much change ("few if any significant changes") from the original variety. Isn't this opposite to what we're assuming?

I am leaning more towards option B.

Reasons why D cannot be the answer (my opinion). If the selected cultivation of farmed plants did not lead to any significant changes, then the author should choose the farmed plants to study the original variety of sunflower. BUT, he doesn't do that. Instead he selects the WILD variety. Now the correct assumption should explain why the author chose the WILD variety over the cultivated variety.

Option B correctly links the WILD VARIETY of today, with the original variety.

This is a question from Veritas prep and in Veritas, the correct answer is given as B.

Hi,
lets see the choices..

B. The wild sunflower plants on the island of Tropica today are more similar to the original variety than today’s farmed plants.
It clearly is the assumption on which the botanist wants teh wild sunflower to be studied...
clearly the assumption to prefer wild over farmed sunflower..

D. The selective cultivation of farmed plants over the past 10,000 years has led to few if any significant changes from the original variety.
This tells us that there could be very few significant changes and possibly no changes in farmed crop..
This assumption would go against not studying the farmed crop, after all they too have undergone very few changes, which too may not be true..
so no reason to prefer wild over farmed, or to completely neglect farmed crop

hope it helps

IMO D

Premise 1: All of the sunflowers on the island today, both wild and farmed, have descended from that original variety.
Premise 2: the wild plants have not been selectively cultivated over the years as the farmed plants have.
Conclusion: By studying today’s wild sunflower plants on the island of Tropica, we can learn much more about that original variety of sunflower

Possible assumption: selective cultivation brought changes in farmed plants that will not allow farmed plants to be preferred for studying original plant characteristics but instead wild plants will help in this regard.


The botanist’s argument depends on which of the following assumptions?

A)There were not other varieties of sunflowers on Tropica when the settlers first arrived on the island. -- irrelevant . How does this matter

B)The wild sunflower plants on the island of Tropica today are more similar to the original variety than today’s farmed plants. -- irrelevant . It doesn't help explain uniqueness of wild plants and weakens the conclusion instead.

C)The climate on the island of Tropica has not changed significantly over the past 10,000 years.--- how does this matter. Both wild and farmed plants are affected as both have same origin. Also insufficient info

D) The selective cultivation of farmed plants over the past 10,000 years has led to few if any significant changes from the original variety.-- Correct as this matches our assumption. Negating this, conclusion falls apart

E) Some wild plants have mutated dramatically over the past 10,000 years.--- Weakens conclusion

Please post OA along with OE for better understanding.

Clear D for me.

if the plant has changed during the years than there will be not point at studying the plants of today in order to discover more about the plant 10000 years ago!

OA?

Hope it helps!

PREMISE- The wild plants have not been selectively cultivated over the years as the farmed plants have.
CONCLUSION- By studying today’s wild sunflower plants on the island of Tropica, we can learn much more about that original variety of sunflower.

LOGIC-ALL THE PLANTS WERE BROUGHT 10,000 YEARS BACK. SOME SELECTIVELY CULTIVATED THROUGH FARMS......SOME GREW IN WILD.....
THOSE IN WILD ARE BETTER TO STUDY THE ORIGINAL ONES.......WHY ARE THE CULTIVATED ONES NOT ? IT MEANS THE ONES SELECTIVELY CULTIVATED DEVELOPED SIGNIFICANT CHANGES WHICH MAKE IT DIFFICULT TO COMPARE WITH ORIGINAL ONES.....


Prospect ans are "B" and "D"....
The botanist’s argument depends on which of the following assumptions?


B)The wild sunflower plants on the island of Tropica today are more similar to the original variety than today’s farmed plants....this is a stated premise ....cant be an assumption......incorrect

D)The selective cultivation of farmed plants over the past 10,000 years has led to few if any significant changes from the original variety.correct as per our logic above...

Does it matter whether there were other varieties of sunflower when the settlers first arrived? You are given - "All of the sunflowers on the island today, both wild and farmed, have descended from that original variety that settlers brought in". So it doesn't matter to our argument whether other varieties existed before. We know that they don't exist today. Our question is whether we should study wild or farmed variety to find out about the variety that settlers brought in. Both wild and farmed varieties have descended from the variety brought in by settlers only. So (A) has nothing to do with our argument.

Premises are always taken to be true. Since they have given you that "all sunflowers are descendants of that variety," it means they are descendants of that variety. They might have evolved but the original was the variety brought in by settlers. None of the varieties today belong to the indigenous varieties - you are given.

Hi,
lets see the choices..

B. The wild sunflower plants on the island of Tropica today are more similar to the original variety than today’s farmed plants.
lets take the same premise etc as written by you..
Premise- the wild plants have not been selectively cultivated over the years as the farmed plants have
Assumption- The wild sunflower plants on the island of Tropica today are more similar to the original variety than today’s farmed plants..
Conclusion- By studying today’s wild sunflower plants on the island of Tropica, we can learn much more about that original variety of sunflower

now we know from the para that "the wild plants have not been selectively cultivated over the years as the farmed plants have." And conclulsion is derived that "By studying today’s wild sunflower plants on the island of Tropica, we can learn much more about that original variety of sunflower."
here we are not told if the selective cultivation has had any effect on farmed variety so as to prefer wild over it, or after such a long time hasn't the change in environment brought certain changes in wild plants too..
But since the author is concluding that wild should be preferred over farmed, he believes/assumes that The wild sunflower plants on the island of Tropica today are more similar to the original variety than today’s farmed plants..
clearly the assumption here to prefer wild over farmed sunflower..

D. The selective cultivation of farmed plants over the past 10,000 years has led to few if any significant changes from the original variety.
This tells us that there could be very few significant changes and possibly no changes in farmed crop..
This assumption would go against not studying the farmed crop, after all they too have undergone very few changes, which too may not be true..
so no reason to prefer wild over farmed, or to completely neglect farmed crop

hope it helps

I'm still getting confused between B and D. Both are trying to point at the same idea that the wild plants would show more similarity with the original plant. If I negate B it opposes the conclusion made. Rather in D it has not mention the specific variety being talked about.

Hi Karishma,

I was stuck between options A and B. I do agree that negating B, the argument falls apart.
Also Negating A , i think the argument falls apart.
If there were other varieties of sunflowers on tropica when settlers first arrived on island, today’s wild sunflower plants on the island of Tropica may resemble the special variety of sunflowers (OR) those of which previously existed before the settlers arrived.
Please help whether my interpretation is correct.

Thanks in advance.

VeritasPrepKarishma, tnx for the reply, but I think that I have found the mistake!

"Premises:
Early settlers brought a special variety of sunflower plant to cultivate.
Today, all sunflowers are descendants of that variety. (So even if there were other varieties before, they are extinct now on this island)"

That is not true, they could easily crossbreed, and therefore the old varieties would have evolved, and would not be extinct!

I am astound to know that the answers given has to be verify at this platform, as i was blindly relying on the forum's answers( Vertias ans is appreciated but does this mean we need to verify all our answers somewhere else as well???) Learner could learn wrong techniques or end up confusing themselves.

Usually the original posters of the questions post the correct answers; sometimes they mess up. Once pointed out, often moderators rectify the mistake. So you don't need to worry. If you don't agree with the answer, make it a point to check out the entire thread or request an expert to respond on the thread.

Between B & D if we negate D then the sentence will be as follows
The selective cultivation of farmed plants over the past 10,000 years has not led to few if any significant changes from the original variety - can this mean 2 things ? i.e 1) it has not lead to any significant changes 2) it has lead to many significant changes not few but many … i think if we negate D we will get 2 scenarios one scenario will satisfy the assumption the other one won't

No. If we negate (D), we arrive at only one interpretation.

(B) The selective cultivation of farmed plants over the past 10,000 years has led to few if any significant changes from the original variety.

few, if any - means 'almost none'

Negation of (B) The selective cultivation of farmed plants over the past 10,000 years has led to some/many changes from the original variety.

If a sentence has words such as "all", "none" etc, then they are the ones which are negated to make a meaningful negation of the sentence.

I have a question here...
I am not questioning the correct answer B. In-fact I was shocked when i saw green blink at option D.

I read somewhere in the forum that in assumption question, we shall avoid an option that is directly stated in premise. Isn't that option B falls on the same line.
Assumption r missing links that helps us to reach conclusion using the premise.

"because the wild plants have not been selectively cultivated over the years as the farmed plants have."
B)The wild sunflower plants on the island of Tropica today are more similar to the original variety than today’s farmed plants.