LSAT 35, Logical Reasoning II, Q16

QUESTION TEXT: Publicity campaigns for endangered species are unlikely…

QUESTION TYPE: Necessary Assumption

CONCLUSION: It’s not likely that publicity campaigns for endangered species will help solve the most important environmental problems.

REASONING: It’s easy to make people want to save large mammals. It’s very hard to make people care about soil microorganisms. 

ANALYSIS: The argument is assuming that the most important environmental problems depend on doing more than saving the largest mammal species. 

___________

1. CORRECT. If all of the most important environmental problems just involve large mammals then maybe publicity campaigns will work. 
2. It doesn’t matter what feelings microorganisms have. It only matters whether or not we can convince people to save them. 
3. This is irrelevant. The argument was claiming that publicity campaigns won’t work. It would be sad if they were the most effective way, but that’s all. 
4. It isn’t necessary that this is always the case. People might pay attention to environmental problems that threatened them directly, for example. That wouldn’t weaken the argument.
5. The argument wouldn’t be weakened if an organism could be environmentally significant despite not affecting large ecosystems or agriculture. 

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