If the forest continues to disappear at its present pace, the koala wi

anandnk,
Whats wrong with E? I did not choose B because B seems to be a bit hard statement. On the other hand, the biologist used a mild statement like 'approach extinction'. So I thought 'approach extinction' is better than 'becomes extinct'.

Please clarify.

Thanks.

Well E is the next contender. But politician is talking about stopping the deforestation. So if his advice is implemented and the result is -ve then it is not consitant with what he said. If you slow the deforestation and the Koala becomes extinct then he might come out and say "hey I told u to stop the deforestation and not just slow it down, did u hear what the biologist said, no wonder Koala became extinct"

You know how manipulative these politicians are.

I hope I am right.

hmm.. (B) for me.

Biologists: IF X then Y
Politician: No Y then No X

Logically Correct

(A) : X so Y. Logically Correct. In line with Both statement.
(B) : No X so Y Logically Incorrect. Not inline with Politician Statement.

My pick will be 'D'
'B' is not consistent with the biologist's claim because the biologist does not want to stop deforestation all he says is to cut down on the pace of deforestation so the koala will not become extinct.

'D' says exactly this so it is consistent with the biologist's claim but it is not consistent with the politician's claim because the politician says that deforestation has to be stopped and not slowed.

I do not understand, the OA, can somebody shed some light.

“If the forest continues to disappear at its present pace, the koala will approach extinction,” said the biologist.
“So all that is needed to save the koala is to stop deforestation,” said the politician.


Assumption by the politician is that Deforestation is the only way in which forest disappears.
So politician to be false and biologist to be true, even after stopping deforestation the
disappeanace of the forest continues.

Straight B


Which one of the following statements is consistent with the biologist’s claim but not with the politician’s claim?
(A) Deforestation continues and the koala becomes extinct.
(B) Deforestation is stopped and the koala becomes extinct.
(C) Reforestation begins and the koala survives.
(D) Deforestation is slowed and the koala survives.
(E) Deforestation is slowed and the koala approaches extinction.

OE:

Notice that the politician’s statement is much stronger than the biologist’s. The biologist says merely
that if deforestation continues then the koala will approach extinction. This can be diagrammed as
D—>E
where D stands for “deforestation continues” and E stands for “extinction.” In other words, ending
deforestation is a necessary condition for the koala’s survival. Now the politician says that if deforestation
stops then the koala will not approach extinction. This can be diagrammed as
~D—>~E
This is stronger because it declares that ending deforestation is sufficient for the koala to survive. You
should notice this as the fallacy of denying the premise. Look at choice (B). It stops deforestation yet the
koala still becomes extinct. This is not consistent with the politician’s statement since he claimed stopping
deforestation would prevent the koala’s extinction. But (B) is consistent with the biologist’s claim since he
said only that if deforestation continued then the koala would become extinct. He said nothing about the
case in which deforestation stops—the koala could still become extinct for other reasons. Remember, if the
premise of an if-then statement is false, then we know nothing about the conclusion. The answer is (B).

Help, AndrewN
The answer kind of disoriented me haha.
Is this question a legitimate concern for gmat test takers such as me?

Posted from my mobile device

Pardon the delay in my response, Shikhar22. My attention was simply pulled in other directions until now. To answer your question, this is not one of the more common question types on the GMAT™, and it appears antiquated to my eye, not like any question I have seen in more recent editions of the OG. That said, it is still not a bad idea to get some extra practice with what may have been an official question at one time. You never know when GMAC™ may decide to brush the dust off an old question and put it in front of test-takers again in a slightly different form.

I will confess to spending probably an extra minute on this one because I saw ahead of time that it was rated at 95 percent difficulty, but I had my answer in about a minute. I will talk through my thought process below, using an image I have color-coded for clarity.


In order to find something that is NOT consistent with the view of the politician, we need to follow exactly what the politician says. We see that the politician offers an extreme viewpoint: The only way to save the koala is to stop deforestation. Seems easy enough. All we need to do, then, is to find an answer that goes against this idea—the proposed way to save the koala will fail to achieve the predicted outcome.

(A) is consistent with the condition the biologist outlines, but then the statement pushes beyond the predicted outcome, namely that the koala will approach extinction, not necessarily become extinct. Furthermore, the politician would seem to get behind such a statement, since only stopping deforestation, apparently, will save the koala. This is not the answer we are looking for.

(B) matches our scenario from above. The condition is met—deforestation is stopped—yet the outcome is different—the koala becomes extinct. Thus, this statement is inconsistent with the claim made by the politician. We need not concern ourselves with the other part of the question stem unless we need to after an initial sweep of the other answer choices.

(C) is completely speculative. Neither the biologist nor the politician discusses reforestation, so any associated outcome is unrelated to their claims. This should be an easy elimination.

(D) can be attractive if you focus too much on the biologist and assume that if the opposite condition came to be, then the opposite outcome would also follow. It might seem reasonable, too, to think of the statement with an eye on the claim made by the politician, the statement more or less serving as an alternative to stopping deforestation to save the koala. The problem, though, is that the politician deals in extremes: Deforestation has to be stopped, not merely slowed. For the statement to have any real impact on the politician's claim, we need it to place stopping front and center.

(E) also falls out of bounds of the claim put forth by the politician, who, again, does not discuss slowing the process of deforestation.

In the end, the only answer that fits what the question asks of us is (B), and we did not have to get tangled up in both halves of the question stem to arrive at the correct answer. (I sometimes use the same method to comb through answer choices efficiently in boldface questions.)

I hope that helps. I would be happy to discuss the question further if you wish. Good luck with your studies, and thank you for thinking to ask me about this one.

- Andrew

Thank you for such a detailed explanation. My only doubt is that, in the process described above, we didn’t had to worry about the answer choice to be in line with the biologist’s claim at all?

Posted from my mobile device

And I’m also intrigued when you mention the same process in boldface questions. Because I’m struggling to juggle the exact same thing in them questions too. By checking both parts. So when you mention you can do it by only focusing on part, then that sounds really helpful and I’m eager to put that in practice. AndrewN Thank you in advance! 😊

Posted from my mobile device

We lucked out on this one, Shikhar22. You should also appreciate the difference between a conditional statement like the one the biologist makes, if X then Y, and a more definitive statement like the politician offers, only X will lead to Y. If the condition is not met in the former, then the door is open to different possibilities. For example, consider the conditional, If I run, I will be healthier. Now, if I do not run, can I make any conclusion about my health? That is why (B) can be consistent with the claim put forth by the biologist. We simply have nothing in the passage to the contrary.

To touch on your follow-up query, I am not saying that I make it a habit to ignore half of a boldface answer choice to focus exclusively on the other half; rather, I will on occasion feel more comfortable eliminating answer choices based on what I am next to positive is not true regarding one half of the boldface or the other. For instance, if I am sure that one boldface serves as a premise and I see that an answer choice labels it an intermediate conclusion or something, I will immediately get rid of that option and look for others that repeat the error. In this manner, I do not get bogged down seeking to qualify or disqualify every part of each answer choice. I work from a place of comfort and reduce the answer pool quickly and confidently.

- Andrew

Thank you. I get the picture now. The subtlety of biologist’s claim vs the politician’s claim. And also, the process of identifying the part which you are certain about in bold face questions to narrow down answer choice. I just realized I do that too, but never really articulated that to myself. Must make more notes on CR! Thank you again for your patient and lucid explanation. AndrewN

Posted from my mobile device

The most toughest of all questions are those which has little ground and cannot vary much we cannot depend anymore parameters than given , however the key to cracking this question was of course sticking to the passage not digressing even an inch , i think princeton thought process, leaving that the politician wants to save the kola by stopping deforestation now to make it irrevalent only option B stands out as the only one which makes the kola extinct as well as stops deforestation thus IMO B

Hi KarishmaB ! That link does not work. Can u pls send a good link? thanks

Nina1987
The Veritas Prep blog post links do not work anymore. You can check out this concept on my YouTube channel here: https://youtu.be/MmlwcTlHZz8

Hi KarishmaB

Are all the Quarter Wit & Quarter Wisdom blog posts available in this new link ?

Many are Vetrick but not all.