LSAT-25-2-17【sheetah】

17. Wild cheetahs live in the African grasslands. Previous estimates of the size that the wild cheetah population must be in order for these animals to survive a natural disaster in the African grass lands region were too small, and the current population barely meets the previous estimates. At present, however, there is not enough African grassland to support a wild cheetah population larger than the current population.
The Statement above, if true, most strongly support which one of the following conclusions?
(A) Previous estimates of the size of the existing wild cheetah population were inaccurate.
(B) The cheetah’s natural habitat is decreasing in size at a faster rate than is the size of the wild cheetah population.
(C) The principal threat to the endangered wild cheetah population is neither pollution nor hunting, but a natural disaster.
(D) In the short term, the wild cheetah population will be incapable of surviving a natural disaster in the African grasslands.
(E) In regions where land is suitable for cheetah habitation, more natural disasters are expected to occur during the next decade than occurred during the past decade.

key's D.

原文说原来预测，为了要survive a natural disaster，cheetah的数量很少。目前的数量比这个预测还少。
又说，however，grassland不够支撑比现在数量更多的cheetah了。
这一前一后的逻辑关系没看懂。:-/

为什么D，y not C?

In this type of question, the answer must be strictly supported by the reasoning in the question. I do not know where you can possible get C out of the question. C is out of scope here.

Your understand of "为了要survive a natural disaster，cheetah的数量很少" is not correct. What it says is that there is an estimate of number of cheetas for them to survive a natural disaster. For exmaple: the number of cheetas must be over 10,000 to survive. But the estimate is too low. So it has to be over 20,000 to survive. But the number of cheetas is even lower than the original estimate, indicating that cheetas will not survive a natural disater.

The question also tells you that there is not enough natural resources, the grassland, to support more cheetas. Therefore, D is correct.