QUESTION TEXT: In a national park located on an…
QUESTION TYPE: Paradox
PARADOX: There were too many moose on an island national park. So, wolves were introduced to thin the herd. The wolf population did well, but the moose grew as well.
ANALYSIS: If the wolves prospered, that means they were eating something. I can think of two ways to explain it:
- The wolves ate some other animal which had been competing with the moose for food.
- The wolves somehow helped the moose herd by killing some of them.
___________
- This is a tempting trap. The moose are on an island. Other predators presumably can’t move there. (If they could have, they would likely already have done so and thinned the moose herd.)
- That’s nice. This doesn’t explain why they were unsuccessful though.
- CORRECT. This provides a clear reason. By killing a small number of moose, the wolves save a larger number from dying of disease.
- This is just a fact about moose. It doesn’t explain how the moose survived the wolves and prospered. The stimulus doesn’t mention disease or injury, so merely mentioning those words doesn’t make them relevant. (By contrast, answer C makes very clear how disease is relevant.)
- So? This doesn’t tell us wolves are ineffective. It just tells us that old animals die. Which….we already knew. The LSAT does allow you to assume animals are mortal.
Recap: The question begins with “In a national park located on an”. It is a Paradox question. To practice more Paradox questions, have a look at the LSAT Questions by Type page.
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hugh says
what is this paradox called i have no clue what it is called
Jeff says
Hi Graham, I can see why A is wrong quick question about C: Just because they’re weakened by disease, how do we know said diseases are actually killing them? How weakened are they by disease? We just know that the disease is weakening the moose by X amount. Even if it spreads, we don’t know that the disease is causing more of them to die or how severe it is.
Are we allowed to assume a severity of illness that would lead to death/high enough level of death that the moose population wouldn’t still be allowed to grow?
FounderGraeme Blake says
It’s a paradox question. The standard is “most helps to explain”. You don’t need to prove it 100%. You just need to show a viable possibility.
It sounds like the wolves help eliminate disease from the moose herd. It’s not a massive stretch to assume that absence of a disease could explain why a population grew.