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I have a some True False NotGiven questions that I had a hard time figuring the answers. In this sort of question, we must read a passage and then choose whether some information is true, false, or not given in that passage.

Here are the questions:

  1. China has more citrus pests than any other country in the world.

    In the passage, the line that connected to this part is "China also has the greatest diversity of citrus pests". I gave it a NOTGIVEN since I think "more pests" is about quantity, which is not the same as diversity.

    The given answer is TRUE.

  2. Trees with ants had more leaves fall than those without.

    In the passage, the line that connected to this part is "Trees with yellow ants produced almost 20 per cent more healthy leaves than those without". I gave it a NOTGIVEN since I think the fact that a tree having more leaves doesn't relate to the amout of "leaves fall".

    The given answer is FALSE.

Thank you for your help

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    Your first one is a poor question, since the "right" answwr depends entirely on whether one choose to understand more garden pests as meaning a greater number of distinct species of pest, or a greater number of individual organisms (irrespective of their species diversity).
    – FumbleFingers
    Sep 3, 2017 at 18:39
  • They are both poor questions. For example, the second one is about "yellow ants" (in the passage) but the true/false question is about "ants" in general (without referencing type or colour).
    – rjpond
    Sep 3, 2017 at 18:52

1 Answer 1

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It is possible to understand the phrase citrus pest as "species that attacks citrus" and thus the phrase more citrus pests could mean "greater number of species that attack citrus" which would be synonymous with "greater diversity of citrus pests", since diversity refers to species variety.

With the second, it would depend how the term "fall" is used in the specific context. Since even healthy leaves do fall eventually, a tree with more healthy leaves will eventually be a tree that drops a greater number of leaves. But if "fall" is used to mean "die prematurely", then the answer would be false.

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  • That's where I'm stuck. From my perspective, diversity and quantity are different. For example, you have 10 dogs of 1 kind, I have 3 dogs of 3 kinds. Clearly I have a greater diversity of dogs and you have more dogs.
    – T C
    Sep 3, 2017 at 15:57
  • It has nothing to do with quantity when the phrase "citrus pest" is understood to mean "species that attacks citrus". In that case "more citrus pests" would mean "greater variety of species attacking citrus". If, however, you understand citrus pest to mean "an individual organism of any kind that attacks citrus" then it becomes about quantity.
    – Tᴚoɯɐuo
    Sep 3, 2017 at 15:59
  • I realize that this is not the test-strategy stack exchange. But it would seem funny to construe the claim "China has more citrus pests" to refer to the number of individual insects, since the number of insects in any given country is of course unknowable and in constant flux. If this is a test of reading comprehension I would suspect that the author of the test merely meant to paraphrase so that uncomprehending test-taker would not recognize the right answer by the repeated words.
    – Chaim
    Dec 19, 2017 at 20:19
  • @Chaim: I agree, and would say that the salient meaning of more citrus pests is a greater variety of citrus pest species.
    – Tᴚoɯɐuo
    Dec 19, 2017 at 22:52

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