Editor: Articles in Gardening Magazine often spur sales of the plants they describe, particularly among people new to gardening. Accordingly, we will no longer publish articles or accept advertisements praising the beauty of rare wildflowers. Most such plants sold to gardeners have been difficult to propagate under cultivation, so plant sellers often collect them in the wild. Our new policy is part of our efforts to half this yearly plundering of our native plant populations.

Which of the following, if true, casts the most doubt on the wisdom of the magazine's new policy as a way of pursuing the intended effect?

A. When people new to gardening buy plants, they often fail to take adequate care of the plants that they buy and become discouraged from buying those varieties again.
B. Plant sellers who sell rare wildflowers have no reasonably inexpensive alternate way to offer their wares directly to new gardens.
C. The demand for rare wildflowers rarely exceeds the number of such plants that can be collected in the wild by plant sellers.
D. The propagation of rare wildflowers often depends on the plant's interaction with other organisms in their environment such as plants that create suitable soil conditions or insects and birds that disperse seeds.
E. Revenues from sales of plants collected in the wild are supporting the discovery of new low-cost techniques enabling rare wildflowers to be readily propagated in nurseries.



Please justify your answer with explanation/ strategy for wrong answer choices.
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Lets set up the question first: The magazine wants to discontinue featuring rare wildflowers. This is because articles in the magazine spur the sale of plants featured in the magazine, particularly among people new to gardening. Why does the magazine not want to support the sale of rare wildflowers?
The reason is that rare wildflowers cannot be cultivated, so sellers of these plants cultivate them in the wild. When rare wildflowers are cultivated in the wild, they replace native plant populations (this also means rare wildflowers are not native to the region). The magazine wants to stop this.
We need to select the choice that invalidates the magazine's strategy as a valid choice of action to meet their objective (halting the replacement or native plant varieties by rare wildflowers).

(A): It is irrelevant that people become discouraged to buy the same plants again. That they buy them once is enough to spur demand for these plants. The magazine's policy will have its intended effect on this group of people by discouraging them from buying even the first time. Incorrect.
(B): This is irrelevant and has no effect on plant sellers wanting to grow rare wildflowers. This does not invalidate the magazine's policy of trying to decrease demand for rare wildflowers. Incorrect.
(C): Even if the demand for rare wildflowers does not exceed the number of plants that can be collated by plant sellers, this still does not prevent sellers from growing these plants. The magazine's strategy will still slow demand for rare wildflowers and will have its effect. Incorrect.
(D): This does not invalidate the magazine's strategy in any way. Incorrect.
(E): CORRECT. If revenues from the sale of plants collected in the wild is helping fund new techniques for cultivating these plants in nurseries, then this will ultimately help to protect native plant species by reducing the number of non-native plants grown in the wild. The magazine's strategy of decreasing the demand for these plants, thus decreasing their sales and their cultivation in the wild, is therefore invalidated because it will decrease the funds available for the research into new techniques for cultivation of these plants in nurseries.
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hmm, solved this question in 1 minute and selected B as the correct option, just by reading the words "no alternate ways". I thought that the magazine's policy to prevent the publishing of articles will still not have the desired effect as plant sellers will continue to plunder native plant population due to lack of any alternate inexpensive ways.

As option B is wrong, I think because it is too wide in scope. "wares" is a general term which may include rare wild flowers, and to what proportion we do not know. Also the conclusion is that the magazine's policy will reduce demand, which in turn will reduce supply, hence decreasing the plundering of native plant populations. And "reduce in demand" is untouched by option B.

Looking at the OA: E, I am not totally convinced. E has far reaching and probable consequences, hence should be a weak weakening option. Though by POE it may be the only option left.
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as mentioned above nothing seems a distinctively better but POE lead us to E...
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There are some great observations above--I wanted to point out a couple of things.

GyanOne makes some very good points about the scope of the argument, but I disagree with one part of his/her analysis--the situation of the plants in the wild. The magazine doesn't want to publish articles about rare wildflowers because this publication could lead to increased sales, and those sold wildflowers would have to be *collected* in (or stolen from) the wild because the plants are difficult to propagate/cultivate in the non-wild. The magazine's goal is to help "half this yearly plundering of our native plant populations"--to decrease the theft of native plants from the wild.

I agree completely that all four of the incorrect answers are out for "scope" reasons...the conclusion deals exclusively with trying to decrease the theft of plants from the wild. We're therefore looking for an answer that would make us WEAKEN the conclusion that abstaining from the publication of rare-wildflower articles would help prevent wildflower plundering.



(A) What happens to the plants once people buy them is largely irrelevant, since these people have already bought the plants (and therefore the plundering has already occurred). If the people are less likely to buy those plants again, that fact would--if anything--decrease the number of wildflowers plundered down the road (although not immediately, since these people already bought the plants once). At best this answer choice has no effect, and at worst it actually strengthens the conclusion. Eliminate.

(B) Who cares about the expense? The reason given for the flowers being plundered is that they cannot be cultivated, not that they are expensive. Out of scope. Eliminate.

(C) We don't care if there aren't enough plants that can be stolen--we want them not to be stolen in the first place! Out of scope. Eliminate.

(D) This choice gives the reason that wildflowers are difficult to propagate in non-wild circumstances, but doesn't affect how we might prevent their theft. Out of scope. Eliminate.

(E) At first glance, this choice doesn't seem directly applicable-- the plants have already been collected (stolen). However, if the rare wildflowers can eventually be grown in non-wild conditions ("propagated in nurseries"), there will be less demand to "collect"(steal) them from the wild. So, counter-intuitively, the current collection/theft of plants from the wild could slow the future collection/theft of those same plants. That possibility runs counter to the magazine's conclusion, so this is our answer.
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I may be overcomplicating things, but why is it not B?

If the wild flower advertisements the magazine prints for these plant sellers has a neglibible effect on the sales or if 90% of buyers come from cheap internet advertisements, would the magazine's actions have no effect?

Thanks for any help!

Editor: Articles in Gardening Magazine often spur sales of the plants they describe, particularly among people new to gardening. Accordingly, we will no longer publish articles or accept advertisements praising the beauty of rare wildflowers. Most such plants sold to gardeners have been difficult to propagate under cultivation, so plant sellers often collect them in the wild. Our new policy is part of our efforts to half this yearly plundering of our native plant populations.

Which of the following, if true, casts the most doubt on the wisdom of the magazine's new policy as a way of pursuing the intended effect?

A. The purchasers who bought wild plants once time and killed it will not buy wild plants anymore. This sentence prove that the more people buy wild plant, the more plants are killed. It is enought that one person kills one plant
B. Plant sellers who sell rare wildflowers have no reasonably inexpensive alternate way to offer their wares directly to new gardens. => Irrelevant one, quite strengthen.
C. The demand for rare wildflowers rarely exceeds the number of such plants that can be collected in the wild by plant sellers. => Clearly strengthen by increasing the demand of wild plants
D. The propagation of rare wildflowers often depends on the plant's interaction with other organisms in their environment such as plants that create suitable soil conditions or insects and birds that disperse seeds. => If native plants were taken from the forests, they will not adapt to the new conditions to reproduce new plants => native plant population decrease, strengthen one

E is too clear, I will not explain any more.
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E is direct OA here. Magazine is worried that the wildflower plants will be robbed from forests by plant sellers, if their cultivation is not possible, but if selling of these plants can fund new technologies which support cultivation of these plants, then leads to an win win situation