LR Question 9 Explanation
QUESTION TEXT: Some scientists believe that 65 million years ago an…
QUESTION TYPE: Paradox
PARADOX: An asteroid strike could have killed the dinosaurs.
However, the asteroid strike could not have killed the plants. Most of the debris would have settled within six months, too soon to kill plants.
ANALYSIS: On many paradox questions, there’s no way to think of a right answer ahead of time. Here, you just have to keep an open mind for other ways an asteroid strike could kill all the dinosaurs.
The right answer provides an alternate way the asteroid could have killed the dinosaurs: the dust caused disease. The disease could have occurred even if most of the dust settled.
___________
- Poor carnivores. But we haven’t established that the herbivores would have lost their food: the dust settled very quickly.
- This doesn’t matter, since the asteroid strike would hurl dust into the entire atmosphere.
- That’s interesting. But the debris cloud settled down very fast, so the cool temperatures wouldn’t have lasted for long.
- Ok, so “many” dinosaurs would have been killed. But this doesn’t tell us that the asteroid strike was enough to kill all of the dinosaurs.
- CORRECT. This could kill all of the dinosaurs. The atmospheric debris went everywhere. And if enough dust stayed airborne even after most of it then settled then respiratory infections could have killed all of the dinosaurs.
More Resources for Paradox Questions
- Intro Course lesson: This intro course lesson covers Paradox questions.
- Mastery Seminar lesson: This LR Mastery seminar lesson covers paradox questions.
I agree why E is correct but still confused to reject option D properly.
Is it wrong because:
1. It talks about “deaths” and doesn’t explain the “extinction” part?
2. It offers another mechanism of extinction which is different from scientists’ beliefs (debris blocking sunlight) and is out of scope
Please help me confirm my reasoning or correct me with right reasoning to eliminate D.
Your first point is closer. More broadly, though, the key difference between D and E is scope and sufficiency.
E explains how the debris could have caused widespread, lasting harm to dinosaurs around the globe, even beyond six months. This helps account for total extinction and thus resolves the paradox.
D, on the other hand, describes the asteroid killing many dinosaurs through the impact and tidal waves. But that effect is localized (generally limited to the strike zone) and clearly insufficient in terms of numbers. “Many” doesn’t mean “all”, and we don’t even know if it means majority or “most”. So D fails to explain how all dinosaurs died.
I’d be cautious with your second point. In paradox questions, it’s quite common for the correct answer to introduce a new mechanism or factor not mentioned in the stimulus. That’s actually how you might resolve the paradox, because it’d be difficult to resolve a paradox using only the confusing factors already present. E mentions a “new mechanism” too. So the issue isn’t whether the mechanism is new, it’s whether it fully accounts for the surprising outcome in the stimulus. D doesn’t.
Hope that helps! Feel free to follow up if anything’s still unclear.
Thanks for the clarification, am good now with the question.