Q4

[didi0504]

Thanks

[ManhattanPrepLSAT1]

This one's a bit tricky, and you cannot simply work from wrong to right. You need to actually know what you're looking for in the answer choices. Notice that the tropics are introduced in the final paragraph; let's start our search there.

Towards the end of the paragraph in lines 44-59, over a lengthy portion of text, we can piece together that these fires were at low elevations (line 58), and were homogeneous forests (line 44).

That's why answer choice (B) is correct. Does that answer your question?

[clarafok]

hello,

i chose B at first, and then decided something was wrong because the answer was similar to #3. then i chose D instead because line 57 says 'the land returned to mixed hardwoods'. can't this also be evidence of controlled burning before the arrival of europeans?

thanks in advance!

[clarafok]

hello,

can someone please explain #5? I chose C instead of D, did i make too big of an inference? i can't find where it talks about D, is it in the last paragraph where the author mentions guatemala, mexico, and nicaragua??

thanks in advance!

[ManhattanPrepLSAT1]

Good question. It's almost as if you talked yourself out of the correct answer on this one, too bad. I agree that the mixed hardwood forests are mentioned in lines 56-57. However, these mixed hardwood forests "returned" when the human settlements were abandoned. So they wouldn't be evidence of controlled burning, but rather the lack of controlled burning.

It's the homogeneous pine forests that the author cites as evidence for the controlled burning, and it's the mixed hardwood forests that are evidence that controlled burning was abandoned.

Does that make sense?

[bbirdwell]

The question is about controlled burning in the tropics. This is mentioned in the third paragraph. Line 37: "burning converted mixed stands of trees into homogenous forest." And then, when specifically discussing the tropics, line 44 onward.

Nicaragua has pine forests where it should have mixed rainforest. The Nicaraguan pines occur where there has been clearing and burning. These forests are mentioned in contrast to the pine forests of Mexico, which occur at high elevations. Therefore, the Nicaraguan pines are homogenous, low elevation forests.

The answer is (B).

[deedubbew]

why not E?

[maryadkins]

(E) would need to be presented in the passage as evidence of controlled burning in the tropics. What lines do you see to support it? The question isn't why not (E) on a question like this but WHY (E)? On these identification questions, you have to find specific lines to support your answer choice"”remember that!

[jm.kahn]

This question is very confusing as it seems to require assumptions beyond what the passage clearly states.

There is no clear connection in the passage that pine-dominant Nicaraguan forests at low elevations are "homogeneous". The author mentions "homogeneous forests" in line-38 but that is in reference to forests in North America, and the topic of forest composition in tropics in line 42-43 is different.

The Question stem asks for evidence "presented" by the author so it's not a "soft" evidence question but a must-be-true evidence question. the passage must make it clear that pine-dominant Nicaraguan forests are homogeneous. Can an RC 180er clarify this?

[syp]

I agree with the previous poster as well. I chose A for this question - which was wrong. I eliminated C,D, and E because the passage did not mention heterogeneous and you cannot connect E to the tropics because it isn't mentioned in relation to it.

How are you able to make the connection "low elevation" with the correct answer choice? Thanks in advance.

[Youngstar2028]

The connection between low level elevation and pine trees in Nicaragua is on line 58 where it says the land that was once homogeneously dominated by Pines returned to mixed hardwoods just like it did in a similar low tropical elevations in the Caribbean and Mexico.