LR Question

[Team Awesome]

Dec 06 1 - 13

It is a mistake to think, as ecologists once did, that natural selection will eventually result in organisms that will be perfectly adapted to their environments. After all, perfect adaptation of an individual to its environment is impossible, for an individual's environment can vary tremendously; no single set of attributes could possibly prepare an organism to cope with all the conditions that it could face.

a)it is not possible for an individual to be perfectly adapted to its environment.

b) natural selection will never result in individuals that will be perfectly adapted to their environment.

c) no single set of attributes could enable an individual organism to cope with all of the conditions that it might face.

d) because an individual's environmnet can vary tremendously, no individual can be perfectly adapted to its environment

e) sick of typing. I get why its wrong.

B is TCR. I had it then picked D. A, Band D all seemed pseudo right and pseudo the same. help.

[mojitomojito]

B. it's the main point of the author. he's saying it's a mistake to think that natural selection will allow individuals to perfectly adapt to their environment. everythign else is just support for his argument. he's talking about organisms in general, not about individuals. less specific is better for this questoin.

[LSAT All Star]

LSAC's point for this question is to be sure you realize when an argument states its conclusion first and then follows with the premises rather than vice versa. 

[EarlCat]

Conclusions on the LSAT do one of three things:
1) Interpret evidence
2) Make a recommendation
3) Disagree

This one does #3 - The hint is "It is a mistake to think, as ecologists once did..." which means, "I disagree with ecologists who said..."

"After all..." indicates premise--information they're asking you to take for granted.  This premise is followed by a semicolon, which basically means, "I'm about to expand on, support, or say the same thing another way."--in other words, here comes another premise.

You can double check this by taking what we think is the conclusion, ask, "Why should I believe this?" and seeing if the premise answers your question.

Why is it a mistake to think natural selection will result in perfectly adapted organisms?  Well, because perfect adaptation is impossible.

After finding this, we'll see (B) sums up the conclusion nicely.