Critical Reasoning: Paradox Questions

Grizzly bears are very dangerous. When people come close to a grizzly bear, there is a much greater chance that they will be attacked by it than if they were to come close to a black bear. In British Columbia, however, over the past eighteen years twice as many people were attacked by black bears than by grizzly bears.   

Which of the following, if true, would most contribute to an explanation of the facts above?

Good job!

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This answer choice resolves the paradox of why, despite the fact that they are less aggressive, black bears attack people more often than grizzly bear attacks in British Columbia - there are simply more black bears there.

Incorrect.

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This answer choice neither resolves nor emphasizes the paradox. It says something that applies to both black bears and grizzly bears, so the paradox remains the same: if both bear species attack under the same circumstances, and grizzly bears attack under additional circumstances, being more aggressive, how come there are still more black bear attacks than there are grizzly bear attacks?

Incorrect.

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The number of people is irrelevant to the number of attacks per species. This statement leads us to believe that there would be a larger number of attacks in general, but not a change in the ratio of black bear attacks to grizzly bear attacks.

Incorrect.

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This answer choice is irrelevant as we do not know whether and how a bear's eyesight affects it chances to attack people. This does not help us explain why black bear attacks are more common than grizzly bear attacks, despite grizzly bears being more aggressive.

Incorrect.

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This answer choice only tells us about the trends in each group of bears separately. However, in order to resolve the paradox we need to know what is the ratio between the groups - are there more black bears than grizzly bears or vice versa?

Bears of both species will attack to protect their cubs from danger.
Recently, more people than ever before have visited the British Columbia area.
There are roughly ten times more black bears than there are grizzly bears in British Columbia.
Black bears have poorer eyesight than grizzly bears do.
There are more grizzly bears today than there were eighteen years ago, whereas the number of black bears has remained the same.

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