QUESTION TEXT: Antarctic seals dive to great depths and…
QUESTION TYPE: Strengthen – Exception
CONCLUSION: Some researchers say that Antarctic seals store oxygen in their spleens.
REASONING: No specific reason is given, apart from the fact that seals must store oxygen on long dives.
ANALYSIS: A lot of the wrong answers provide pretty weak support. But any support at all is enough to strengthen an argument.
B is the weakest answer because it doesn’t specify that Antarctic seals can store oxygen in muscles. Further, there’s no evidence that storing oxygen in muscles lets seals store oxygen in the spleen.
___________
- This shows that it possible for an animal to store oxygen in their spleen.
- CORRECT. First, this doesn’t tell us that Antarctic seals can do the same. Second, muscle tissue isn’t the spleen, and it increased muscle tissue storage doesn’t indicate that the spleen can store oxygen.
- This shows that Antarctic seals must store oxygen somewhere. Perhaps in the spleen.
- This shows that the spleen may have a special function in Antarctic seals. And it seems related to dives.
- Blood vessels allow oxygen to be used. So extra blood vessels in the spleen could show that oxygen was being stored there.
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MemberAden says
I am failing to see why B is much better than A. A is literally talking about horses, while B is at least talking about seals. Maybe it is a tiny bit more vague because it also has the discrepancy of muscle tissue versus the spleen, but showing you can store the blood in other parts of the body sounds no worse to me than comparing a horse to a seal.
FounderGraeme Blake says
Horses and seals are both mammals. So if one mammal can store oxygenated blood in their spleens then that supports the idea that seals also can. The LSAT expects you to use reasonable outside knowledge such that mammals and spleens are similar across species.
The problem with B is that it says “many species of seal”. This doesn’t need to refer to antarctic seals. It’s possible that antarctic seals can’t do this, so then what would B prove?
Note: This is an old comment but I wanted to clarify the point.