2021 CSAT — Q11

Locate. This is a valid-assumption question — find the unstated premise the argument needs. Test each statement against the passage’s actual things, its stated cause-and-effect, and its level of certainty. The passage: fig trees feed wildlife “when other resources are scarce” and “support a high density and diversity of frugivores”; they are “common… where other large trees are absent”; they “may promote frugivore abundance”; and “plenty of seedlings of other tree species would grow around fig trees.”

Test (boundary test + negation).

• St1 keystone — supporting a high density and diversity of frugivores, especially when other food is scarce, is precisely a keystone role; negate it and that sentence falls. VALID.
• St2 grow where others cannot — the passage says other large trees are absent, not that they cannot grow. St2 swaps a location observation for a capability claim — it changes the passage’s level of certainty. INVALID.
• St3 conservation role — promoting frugivore abundance and nurturing seedlings of other species is a biodiversity-conservation role. VALID.
• St4 seed dispersal of other species — “seedlings of other tree species would grow around fig trees” licenses a regeneration/seed-dispersal role for figs. VALID (fair inference).

Eliminate by anatomy. (a)/(c) seat St2 — a shift in the passage’s level of certainty: “absent” read as “cannot grow.” (b) is too restrictive a reading, keeping only St3 and dropping the two other valid inferences. The transferable rule: an assumption that strengthens a passage word (“absent” → “incapable”) has changed the passage’s level of certainty, however plausible it sounds. Key: (d).

Statement 2 fires the QUALIFIER boundary: the passage says fig trees are “common in agricultural and urban landscapes where other large trees are absent” — absent is not cannot grow; St2 hardens a location fact into a capability claim → INVALID. St1 — “In natural forests, fig trees provide food for wildlife when other resources are scarce and support a high density and diversity of frugivores”: disproportionate support of many species is the keystone idea; negate it and that line collapses → VALID. St3 — “sacred fig trees may promote frugivore abundance” and “plenty of seedlings of other tree species would grow around fig trees”: a conservation role → VALID. St4 — those seedlings of other species establishing around fig trees licenses a seed-dispersal/regeneration role → VALID. → (d).

The passage casts fig trees as a wildlife-supporting, frugivore-sustaining, regeneration-nurturing tree that is common where other large trees are absent.

• St1 — high density/diversity of frugivores supported = keystone role. Valid.
• St2 — “absent” ≠ “cannot grow”; the passage never claims figs grow where others are incapable. Invalid.
• St3 — promoting frugivores + nurturing other species’ seedlings = conservation role. Valid.
• St4 — other species’ seedlings establishing around figs = a seed-dispersal/regeneration role. Valid.

Answer: (d) 1, 3 and 4 only.

The discriminating word is “absent.” The passage observes that fig trees are common where other large trees are absent — a fact about where they are found. St2 silently upgrades this to a claim about what figs can do that others cannot. Absence has many causes (clearing, disturbance, soil) that have nothing to do with capability. This is the certainty check doing its job: the moment a statement turns a located observation into a comparative capacity, it has left the text. St1, St3, St4 each stay inside the passage’s stated ecological roles.