Sea turtle hatchlings leaving their hatching grounds on Florida beaches reach ocean currents by swimming to the northeast, as defined by the north of the Earth’s magnetic field. Florida hatchlings placed in a large indoor tank also swim toward the northeast. But when the tank is surrounded by an artificial magnetic field twice as strong as the Earth’s field and opposite in direction, the hatchlings swim in the direction opposite to that in which they swim without the artificial magnetic field.
The information in the statements above most strongly supports which one of the following?
(A) Once baby sea turtles reach the open sea, they join groups of adults in the North Atlantic.
(B) The direction in which ocean currents flow is determined by the magnetic field of the Earth.
(C) Baby sea turtles are able to sense the magnetic field of the Earth.
(D) No sea turtle ever returns to the beach where it hatched.
(E) If a sea turtle hatches on the coast of Africa, it will swim toward the southwest.
Source : LSAT PrepTest February 1997
On Inference questions, quickly identify and toss out the outside-the-scope and too-broad choices.
Let’s boil it down. Hatchlings both wild and domestic (i.e. in the tank) swim northeast, in the context of Earth’s normal magnetic field. But when that field is doubled and set in the opposite direction, hatchlings swim in that opposite direction.
That strongly supports (C), the idea that the hatchlings can somehow sense Earth’s magnetism. If you wrestled with that, consider how far wrong the other choices go:
(A) The scope is the hatchlings’ direction, not their habits upon reaching the end of their swim.
(B) never mentions sea turtle hatchlings. Moreover, the situation here is the hatchlings’ reaching ocean currents, not the source of those currents.
(D) Nothing in the (D) mentions a return by any sea turtles, baby or adult.
(E) is a very peculiar prediction utterly unsupported by the text. If anything, since no magnetic change is imposed in (E), the (E) suggests an inference that turtles, wherever they hatch, will travel in a northeast direction exclusively. So (E) is way off in several respects.