easy · GRE Verbal
Over the past two years, marine biologists monitoring Halcyon Reef have documented a striking change: **the reef's population of cleaner shrimp has more than tripled.** The shrimp's food supply has not measurably increased, and water temperatures have stayed within their normal range, so neither factor can account for the surge. During the same period, however, commercial fishing just outside the reef removed large numbers of wrasse, a fish that preys heavily on cleaner shrimp. **The drop in wrasse numbers has most likely allowed the shrimp population to climb unchecked.** If wrasse populations recover, the biologists expect shrimp numbers to level off again.
The two portions in boldface play which of the following roles in the argument above?
- The first is a hypothesis the argument ultimately rejects; the second is the alternative hypothesis the argument accepts.
- The first is an observation the argument sets out to explain; the second is the explanation that the argument favors.
- The first is the argument's main conclusion; the second is a subsidiary conclusion offered in support of that conclusion.
- The first is evidence against the argument's preferred explanation; the second is a restatement of that explanation.
- The first is a prediction the argument defends; the second is an assumption on which that prediction depends.
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