Andrewcoleman wrote:
There are three levels of progression in this logic train.
DOWN in rain > DOWN in River levels and UP Irrigation
Which leads to
DOWN in river levels > DOWN in river velocity
Which leads to UP in algae
Would it be advisable to skip the middle steps mentally and go straight for the end result.
I feel like I wasted a minute just keeping track of the secondary and tertiary effects of the lower rain, when I didn't really need them.
In Australia, in years with below-average rainfall, less water goes into rivers and more water is extracted from rivers for drinking and irrigation.
Consequently, in such years, water levels drop considerably and the rivers flow more slowly.
Because algae grow better the more slowly the water in which they are growing moves, such years are generally beneficial to populations of algae.??
Hello,
Andrewcoleman. I understand your frustration with CR questions. I used to feel the same way, falling into logic traps left and right. (Well, I was decent, but nowhere near as good as I was on other types of questions.) I would not advise ignoring any part of the passage, since you can never be sure what to expect of the answer choices and from which parts of the passage you may need to draw. One approach I learned the hard way that I have found much success with is reading the question first, before looking at anything in the passage. That way, I go in kind of knowing what to look for, and my pre-thinking cylinders are firing. Some time ago, I wrote
another post on the general topic of CR questions, and this particular question, with an out-of-left-field answer, reminded me of one I wrote about in that post.
In this question, you are expecting all that information about slow-moving and fast-moving water to add up to something, but
drought, a period of dryness, might lead to no water at all, especially if it is
extreme, and if algae depend on at least
some water to survive, then the
extreme drought of the final line of the passage could be pointed to to explain why the algae that would typically thrive in slow-moving water would not do so under these particular weather conditions. Thus, the
contrast or paradox of the question stem is resolved.
I would be happy to answer any other questions you may have. Good luck with your studies.
- Andrew
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