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

Question

Botanist: On the remote island of Tropica, it is known that early settlers brought a special variety of sunflower plant to cultivate on their arrival over 10,000 years ago. All of the sunflowers on the island today, both wild and farmed, have descended from that original variety. By studying today’s wild sunflower plants on the island of Tropica, we can learn much more about that original variety of sunflower because the wild plants have not been selectively cultivated over the years as the farmed plants have.

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.

(B) The wild sunflower plants on the island of Tropica today are more similar to the original variety than today’s farmed plants.

(C) The climate on the island of Tropica has not changed significantly over the past 10,000 years.

(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.

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

The botanist’s argument makes one very important (but easily overlooked) assumption: over the past 10,000 years, wild sunflowers have remained more similar to the original variety than the selectively cultivated farmed sunflowers have. What if wild sunflowers have evolved dramatically but the selective cultivation has produced very few changes from the original variety? In the original argument it is easy to assume that selectively cultivated = more changes but that is not necessarily the case.

Answer choice (B) removes this possibility by guaranteeing that indeed the wild plants are more similar and thus improves the botanist’s argument.

(A) is irrelevant because you are told in the argument that all of the sunflowers on the island today have descended from the one variety brought by the settlers.

(C) is incorrect because you do not know how a change in climate might have affected the sunflowers. Maybe the change caused major mutations in the wild sunflowers but maybe not.

(D) weakens the argument by suggesting that the changes in farmed plants were not significant (the argument assumes that they were) .

(E), with the word “some”, is problematic because it might only refer to one plant, but even if did refer to many, this statement would also weaken the argument.

KarishmaB · Accepted Answer

Responding to a pm:

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)

Conclusion's intent:
By studying today’s wild sunflower plants on the island of Tropica, we can learn much more about that original variety than by studying farmed plants.

There is a disconnect here. Premises talk generally about the farmed and wild varieties. How do we conclude that it is better to study the wild variety than the farmed one to learn about the original variety?
We are assuming that the wild variety is more similar to the original variety and that is why it is better to study the wild variety to know about the original variety than to study the farmed variety. Hence (B) is your assumption.

What about (D)? If anything, it is a weakener to our conclusion i.e. its role is opposite to that of an assumption. (D) says that farmed variety is very close to the original variety. This is actually against our conclusion which says that you must study the wild variety to know about the original variety. The assumption has to support our conclusion, in fact it is necessary for our conclusion.
Hence (D) is out. People who got lost in (D) probably got confused because they negated (D) and then found that it supports the conclusion. Please remember, an assumption must support the conclusion; in fact, it must be necessary for the conclusion.

mba1382 · Answer

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.

Paris75 · Answer

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!

sam163 · Answer

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.

mba1382 · Answer

The point here you are missing is that though we should focus on the conclusion of the argument, the assumption is an unstated premise that links conclusion to the premises.

Let's say we negate both B & D:

B)The wild sunflower plants on the island of Tropica today are not more similar to the original variety than today’s farmed plants. 
Does this really fall apart the argument? No. Because similarity is used very vaguely here and therefore in essence, we can't really learn more about original variety just based on this. We can't for sure say our preference with respect to both varieties.

D)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.
What the negation then means is that farmed plants can be used for learning more about original plant even though the farmed plants are selectively cultivated. Therefore, we need not have wild plants preferred over farmed plants. I think we always need to understand the stem and try to rephrase it in our words to arrive better at the answer.

Hope this helps!!

anindame · Answer

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?

semwal · Answer

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...

virinchiwiwo · Answer

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.

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dheeraj24 · Answer

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.

KarishmaB · Answer

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.

plaverbach · Answer

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!

KarishmaB · Answer

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.

taleesh · Answer

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.

KarishmaB · Answer

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.

Udai · Answer

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

KarishmaB · Answer

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.

JarvisR · Answer

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.

KarishmaB · Answer

Argument: 
The wild plants have not been selectively cultivated over the years as the farmed plants have and hence, by studying today’s wild sunflower plants on the island of Tropica, we can learn much more about that original variety of sunflower.

The point is "what happens if wild plants are not selectively cultivated"? Nothing is stated explicitly.
 B tells us that the wild ones are more similar to the original variety. It is an assumption since it isn't explicitly mentioned. It is a missing premise and it completes the logical sequence.

kanigmat011 · Answer

Completely confused between B and D
Negating both kind of weakens the argument.

Experts please help

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

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

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