Help me on this LR question Forum

[lawduck]

EDIT 2: Scroll down for NEW QUESTION

Help me out here. For some reason I can't seem to figure out why the answer for this is as listed.

Art theft from museums is on the rise. Most stolen art
is sold to wealthy private collectors. Consequently,
since thieves steal what their customers are most
interested in buying, museums ought to focus more of
their security on their most valuable pieces.

The argument depends on assuming which one of the
following?

A. Art thieves steal both valuable and not-sovaluable
art.
B. Art pieces that are not very valuable are not
very much in demand by wealthy private
collectors.
C. Art thieves steal primarily from museums that
are poorly secured.
D. Most museums provide the same amount of
security for valuable and not-so-valuable art.
E. Wealthy private collectors sometimes sell their
stolen art to other wealthy private collectors.

Explanation please? Thanks.

EDIT: The posts below have affirmed my initial suspicious that the credited response should in fact be B (it is listed as D). I apologize for this misleading post - its real goal was to prove unequivocally that the answer key I have for test 45 is incorrect. I gave B as my answer, which coincides with what others seem to agree is correct.

[Alf14997]

The answer is B. If you take the contrapositive of B, it gives you the link you need to draw the connection between the demand of the customers and the need for the increased security of the most expensive pieces

[DELETED]

DELETED

[greygoose]

i say b again


http://www.top-law-schools.com/forums/v ... art#146089


check out this part of slash's thread will help (alf was upset that he couldn't figure it out but it was due to a glitch in his answer key)

[greygoose]

wow talk about beating me to the punch alf and dancer...btw dancer nice avatar

[lawduck]

You'd think. I purposely didn't include the listed answer because it's completely ridiculous (it's listed as D). I put B myself, yet this is apparently wrong.

Is my answer key broken (this is for test 45)? There is at least 2 other questions on this test that I ended up getting wrong for reasons unknown to me.

[greygoose]

is it illegal to have all answer keys in one database? just curious...

[riseagainst]

The argument summary: Art thieves steal what wealthy collectors want, so museums should focus security on their most valuable pieces.

This assumes the most valuable pieces are the most at risk of being stolen. For this to be true, wealthy collectors must want the most valuable pieces of art. Another way of saying this is that not valuable pieces are not in demand, answer B.

[Alf14997]

your answer key is wrong.

I posted this question a few weeks ago but found out my asnwer was wrong, someone sent me the official answer key and it is B

[lawduck]

NEW QUESTION

12. Biologists have noted reproductive abnormalities in fish
that are immediately downstream of paper mills. One
possible cause is dioxin, which paper mills release
daily and which can alter the concentration of
hormones in fish. However, dioxin is unlikely to be the
cause, since the fish recover normal hormone
concentrations relatively quickly during occasional mill
shutdowns and dioxin decomposes very slowly in the
environment.
Which one of the following statements, if true, most
seriously weakens the argument?

(A) Some of the studies that show that fish recover
quickly during shutdowns were funded by
paper manufacturers.

(B) The rate at which dioxin decomposes varies
depending on the conditions to which it is
exposed.

(C) Normal river currents carry the dioxin present in
the river far downstream in a few hours.

(D) Some of the fish did not recover rapidly from
the physiological changes that were induced by
the changes in hormone concentrations.

(E) The connection between hormone concentrations
and reproductive abnormalities is not
thoroughly understood.

[Slash2049]

D? since the prompt didn't say all the fish had reproductive abnormalities, only that they were present

[in my eyes]

I would have said E.. If the connection isn't well understood - how can they associate the chemical with the problem?


D does make sense, but it doesn't seem to destroy the argument, while it seems to me that E would.

D is prob right though

[Alf14997]

No, it is C.

This is the hardest question I have come across.

[Slash2049]

alf.. any reasoning why?

if dioxin is carried way downstream quickly why would that make a lot more difference for fish "immediately" downstream?

[in my eyes]

Alf.

I remember seeing C as the answer now.. Tough question for sure

[lawduck]

I would have said E too. In fact I did say E. The given answer was C.

If it is D then I'm still wrong (and no worse off). Can someone thoroughly explain why it is D however? I reasoned that the flaw was this:

Author says: Fish have reproduction problems. But when dioxin is gone hormones get better. The dioxin is gone a lot (mill shutdowns), so the fish have plenty of time to recover hormones. Thus reproduction problems are not the fault of the mill dioxin.

He's assuming that we know for a fact that hormonal recovery reduces or alleviates reproductive problems (put another way, that reproductive problems can be traced causally to hormonal imbalances/problems). But if we don't know that they can be, they can in fact be completely unrelated. So to say that the fish hormones are usually a-okay should have no bearing on the reproductive problems they are experiencing. It's a different issue.

Can someone explain this further if I am indeed wrong in this?



EDIT: it is infact C eh? Mind explaining? A friend and I are totally stuck on this.

[Alf14997]

I have no idea why.

I seriously spent a day trying to figure it out. I got nothin.

I know D doesn't work because it only says some, it doesn't say all--thought I still think D is the best answer

[Slash2049]

I got the exact same question wrong when I did the test couple of days ago and now though I know why the right answer is right I am not so sure why my answer is wrong! out of curiosity, what was your pick?

the correct answer is C because it attacks the assumption that the dioxin sticks around. and this assumption is crucial for the argument's conclusion to follow since, if that is not the case then the fact that the fish recover normal hormone concentrations relatively quickly has no bearing on the conclusion. so, the argument becomes a dumb one w/out that assumption.

-cyln (sp?) from my thread a few pages back

[Alf14997]

yea i read that a bunch of times, i still dont get it

[Slash2049]

i don't like that explanation, because if the fish recover during mill shutdowns doesn't that tie in dioxin to the hormone levels?

[lawduck]

That still makes no sense to me.

The author's argument is that dioxin is unlikely to be the cause of the reproductive problems.

C says that the dioxin doesn't exist to begin with (it's gone, way downstream). We can infer from this, therefore, that dioxin is unlikely to be the cause of the reproductive problems. This lends credence to the author's argument. Sure it renders his discussion about mill shutdowns irrelevant, but it does not disprove his central claim.

C seems to be the LEAST likely answer...

[Slash2049]

The argument goes: "Well, something from the plant is fucking up the fish, but it can't be Dioxin. We know this because Dioxin sits around in the water for a long time (slow decomposition rate), BUT the fish get better when the plants shut down. If Dioxin were the problem, the fish wouldn't get better when the plant shuts down, because the Dioxin is still right there in the water."


But if the Dioxin were NOT still in the water--because it gets carried away from the fish by the current--then Dioxin goes back to being the likely culprit.

-from xoxo

so i guess this attacks the second part of the argument, that dioxin decomposes slowly so it can't be the culprit since fish get better.

we it does decompose slowly, but way downstream, after it's had a chance to infect fishies

[Alf14997]

Holy shit. that works.

awesome.

[Reinhardt]

Yeah, I guess in other words the author says:

The fish are still exposed to dioxin after the mills shutdown, yet they recover their hormones. Dioxin is not the cause of their problem.

The correct answer choice says: the fish are NOT, in fact, exposed to dioxin after the shutdown, so it may well be the cause of the problem

[Ma$e]

I definately think it is answer C. Is this question really hard?
I am finding more and more that my science background is helping me with a ton of these questions.

I'll explain why I think C is the answer...it might be useless but...

You are trying to weaken the authors argument that...Dioxin is unlikely to be the cause. Therefore really what you are trying to do is strengthen the idea that it actually is the cause.
Looking at it like that, you basically need an explanation as to why the fish by the plant would see a decreased amount of dioxin during a shutdown. The reason would be that the constant flow (from continous mill operation) of dioxin would stop during a plant shutdown if there was a strong current carrying all the chemical downstream. This would mean that there is no dioxin in the water near the fish during plant shutdown...due to the current.

This explanation might not be great but it took me all of 2 seconds to do this question, funny how some minds work differently.
Hopefully that is the right answer or I will look like a complete ass