Q23 - Farm animals have certain

[iridium77]

The correct answer E.) seems to be a mistaken negation of the stimulus:

Stimulus Condition:
current farm management practices-->~efficiency

E.) condition:
changes to current practices-->increase in efficiency

Is this not correct ?

[ohthatpatrick]

Hey, there.

I would encourage you not to think of anything in either this stimulus or answer choice (E) as a conditional statement.

Conditional logic is really only helpful/applicable when there is a conditional language trigger in the stimulus or answer choice.

(Triggers such as: [suff:] if, when, whenever, all, each, any, every, in order to ... [nec:] only, only if, unless, ensures, guarantees, necessitates, requires)

Choice (E) does not have any conditional language. Although causality can be represented conditionally, it would only be correct to do so if you were told that a certain cause ALWAYS leads to a certain effect.

In choice (E), we're only told that a certain cause (changing farm-management practices) CAN result in a certain effect (gains in efficiency).

The one other observation I would make about this problem is that, were you to try to make it look conditional, you could say we were told:
current practices --> more pain and distress
other (conforming) practices --> less pain and distress
&
current practices --> less efficient
other (conforming) practices --> more efficient

Since, in each case we are given a comparative idea that the current practices cause more pain and operate less efficiently than would other farm-management practices, we don't have to rely on any illegal negation. We have the ammunition to prove that the alternative practices cause less pain and operate more efficiently. We were explicitly told that that is the case.

Hope this helps. Let me know if elicits any other questions.

[XEVIAN_ZONG]

Can someone explain to me why (B) is wrong? Thanks!

[Slymobius]

XEVIAN_ZONG,

It isn't "necessary to be familiar the evolutionary history."

[mjacob0511]

By imposing types of organization on farm animals that conflicts with their evolutionary behavioral tendencies, these animals are caused more pain and distress and because they resist it, these practices can be less efficient.

(A) Altering the tendencies? Unsupported.
(B) Necessary to be familiar? As long as he doesn’t conflict with their tendencies, even unintentionally, he does not have to hurt their efficiency.
(C) Loss of efficiency? Why? It can result in a gain of efficiency due to less resistance.
(D) Least pain are most effective? Unsupported. Pain can mean less efficient but we don’t know the extent of the relationship between the two.
(E) Perfect. Some changes, meaning ones that embrace the tendencies, can result in gains of efficiency because the animals won’t resist.

[ellylb]

Hey, there.

I would encourage you not to think of anything in either this stimulus or answer choice (E) as a conditional statement.

Conditional logic is really only helpful/applicable when there is a conditional language trigger in the stimulus or answer choice.

(Triggers such as: [suff:] if, when, whenever, all, each, any, every, in order to ... [nec:] only, only if, unless, ensures, guarantees, necessitates, requires)

Choice (E) does not have any conditional language. Although causality can be represented conditionally, it would only be correct to do so if you were told that a certain cause ALWAYS leads to a certain effect.

In choice (E), we're only told that a certain cause (changing farm-management practices) CAN result in a certain effect (gains in efficiency).

The one other observation I would make about this problem is that, were you to try to make it look conditional, you could say we were told:
current practices --> more pain and distress
other (conforming) practices --> less pain and distress
&
current practices --> less efficient
other (conforming) practices --> more efficient

Since, in each case we are given a comparative idea that the current practices cause more pain and operate less efficiently than would other farm-management practices, we don't have to rely on any illegal negation. We have the ammunition to prove that the alternative practices cause less pain and operate more efficiently. We were explicitly told that that is the case.

Hope this helps. Let me know if elicits any other questions.

I thought of this, but isn't this an error in causality? assuming that just because two things are correlated that one necessarily causes the other? we are not told that other farms are more efficient because they cause less pain and distress, we're just told that other farms are more inline with the behavioural tendencies of certain animals, and those farms happen to be more efficient. Of course, it seems probable and logically likely that this amounts to the cause, however it is a logical leap which is never permissible in an inference question. As far as we know, there are just farms who conflict with behavioural tendencies --> /efficient, farms who don't conflict with behavioural tendencies --> more efficient. Can you explain how this isn't an error of causality? Thanks

[ellylb]

Also, another reason why it seems like a logical leap is that, just because they lessen the pain and distress, does that automatically equate an increase in efficiency? Maybe they have to compromise that very efficiency (whatever that may be) in order to ameliorate the pain and distress. or maybe the pain and distress is increased but this causes some other deficit in efficiency due to an increase in spending or something, I'm not sure. It just seems like too much of an assumption for an inference question.

[ohthatpatrick]

Thanks for the follow-ups. Let’s put up a complete explanation for posterity.

Question Type: Inference

Task: See if any of the provided facts combine together to yield any other ideas.

Be on the lookout for
- conditional language
if, then, only, unless, requires, all, no, etc.
- causal language
because of, due to, this is why, this allows, etc.
- mathy language
all, some, most, no, %, ratio
- comparison/contrast language
similarly, by contrast, but, yet, however

ANALYSIS OF STIMULUS
There was causal language!

Unnatural practices cause more pain/distress for animals than does natural practices.

because the animals resist unnatural practices, the practices are less efficient than natural practices.

We’re kinda told two effects caused directly or indirectly by unnatural practices.

Synthesizing the info, we get
“Unnatural practices cause more pain/distress and are less efficient than natural practices”.

ANSWER CHOICES
(beware: strong, comparative, out of scope)

(A) Super weak! Let’s check it out. Hmm, did we talk about “efficient” farm practices? I don’t think so. This is a relative vs. absolute language shift. The stim talked about more/less pain and more/less efficient. We can’t label anything with the absolute term “efficient”. We also never talked about altering behavior tendencies. We were talking about aligning vs. not aligning with them.

(B) Super strong! Dangerous. “it is NECESSARY”? Moving on.

(C) Ditto. “will be REQUIRED”. Nothing in the stim was black and white, like “necessary” and “required”.

(D) Extreme. “Most efficient” is not something that was talked about so we can’t stake a claim to it.

(E) Were we to hypothetically switch from unnatural to natural practices, we would cause LESS pain/distress and be MORE efficient. So it is true that at least one change in practices could both lessen pain and increase efficiency.

(E) is the correct answer.
Two common features:
1. It is very weakly worded
2. It rewards us for having spotted the causal language in the stim.