A scientist wanted to find out if the height of a shrub would make it more prone to frost damage. He found a hillside covered with shrubs and trimmed all the shrubs located at the
bottom to one meter tall. He left the shrubs growing at the top of the hill untrimmed. They
ranged from one to three meters tall. After a heavy frost, he found that 90% of the shorter
shrubs had frost damage while only 10% of the tall shrubs did. He concluded that short
shrubs were more likely to suffer frost damage than tall shrubs. When he submits his
research report for review by other scientists, which of the following arr they likely to
criticize about his experiment?
A. His hypothesis that shrub height might influence frost damage is not a question
worth testing.
B. His conclusion is inaccurate because the location of the shrubs on the hillside
might also have contributed to where frost damage occurred
C. His methods of recording frost damage must have been biased toward tall shrubs
since there was such a large difference in frost damage.
D. His results are not valid because he had some shrubs in the tall group that were
close to each other.