LSAT 151 | Section 2 | Logical Reasoning: Q18

LR Question 18 Explanation

QUESTION TEXT: In grasslands near the Namib Desert there are …

QUESTION TYPE: Strengthen

CONCLUSION: The burrowing activities of sand termites cause fairy circles to form.

REASONING: Scientists found sand termite colonies in every fairy circle they investigated.

ANALYSIS: Burrowing just means digging a hole or tunnel in the ground. Think like worms.

So the scientists think that because sand termites are burrowing, these fairy circles are being created where there’s no vegetation.

Right now, the evidence only gives us a correlation: termites are there whenever fairy circles are there.

But maybe termites just like living in fairy circles after they form. Maybe something else causes both.

So to strengthen this hypothesis, we want something that makes the termites more likely to actually create these circles. We want to show that burrowing is actually damaging plants to the point where fairy circles are being created by the burrowing.

___________

1. CORRECT. If dying grass in new fairy circles is damaged only at the roots, that strongly fits the idea that something underground (like burrowing termites) is causing the problem.
2. This tells us the surrounding grass is resilient, but that doesn’t point to termites as the cause of the circles.
3. Interesting, but unclear. Higher water content doesn’t obviously support the termite hypothesis unless we already know why termites would cause that.
4. This tells us fairy circles cluster, but says nothing about what causes them.
5. This further supports that there is indeed a correlation between termites and fairy circles. But we already knew that. This doesn’t tell us whether termites are causing the circles.