Which choice best describes a difference in how the two authors discuss the pollinator diversity of vacant lots?

Question

Text 1
Ecologist Devi Ramanathan's survey of forty cities found that pollinator diversity in vacant lots consistently exceeded that of manicured municipal parks. Ramanathan attributes the gap to structural heterogeneity: an unmown lot offers bare soil for ground-nesting bees, standing deadwood, and a tangle of flowering weeds, resources that clipped turf and uniform ornamental beds simply do not supply.

Text 2
That vacant lots host more pollinator species than parks is by now well documented, and Ramanathan's survey confirms it handsomely. But "vacant" is a legal category, not an ecological one, and lots enter and leave it on the timescale of a real estate cycle. Where redevelopment is brisk, a lot's pollinator community may be bulldozed before its plants have set seed a third time; where redevelopment has stalled for decades, the same tangle of weeds functions as durable habitat. Any satisfying account of why lots outperform parks must therefore reckon not only with what grows in them but with how long it is allowed to remain.

Accepted Answer

A. The author of Text 1 explains it by reference to the physical features a lot contains, whereas the author of Text 2 maintains that any explanation must also take into account how long such features persist.. Correct (A): Text 1's explanation is entirely spatial — soil, deadwood, weedy flowers. Text 2 grants the finding but insists the explanation is incomplete without a temporal dimension ('not only with what grows in them but with how long it is allowed to remain'). That is precisely a difference in explanation, not in the finding. (B) reverses Text 2's stance: it calls the pattern 'well documented' and says Ramanathan's data 'confirm it handsomely,' so it raises no replication doubt. (C) overstates Text 2: it says communities in fast-redeveloping cities may be destroyed before maturing, not that the lot–park diversity gap exists only where redevelopment has stalled; Text 2 in fact accepts the gap as general. (D) misreads both texts: Text 1 attributes the gap to specific resources rather than to mere neglect, and Text 2 calls 'vacant' a legal label to stress its instability — the opposite of a legal shield against development.

Answer

B. The author of Text 1 presents it as an established pattern, whereas the author of Text 2 doubts that the pattern would appear in a second survey. — Text 2 calls the pattern "well documented" and says Ramanathan's survey "confirms it handsomely," so it raises no doubt about replication.

Answer

C. The author of Text 1 treats it as consistent across cities, whereas the author of Text 2 asserts that it arises only in cities where redevelopment has stalled. — Text 2 says pollinator communities in fast-redeveloping cities may be destroyed before maturing—it still accepts the lot–park gap as a general pattern rather than limiting it to stalled cities.

Answer

D. The author of Text 1 credits it to the absence of municipal management, whereas the author of Text 2 credits it to legal classifications that shield lots from development. — Text 1 credits specific resources (bare soil, deadwood, flowering weeds), not mere absence of management, and Text 2 calls "vacant" a legal label precisely because it's unstable—the opposite of a shield against development.

Craft and Structure practice question

Answer: A. The author of Text 1 explains it by reference to the physical features a lot contains, whereas the author of Text 2 maintains that any explanation must also take into account how long such features persist.

Why the other answers are wrong

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