Baumgartner's comparison of the environmental hazards of

Lets dissect the argument.

Statement I: Baumgartner's comparison of the environmental hazards of gasoline-powered cars VS electric cars is misleading.

Statement II : He examines only production of the cars, whereas it is the product's total life cycle that matters.

Statement III (example for Statement II) - A typical gasoline-powered car consumes 3 times more resources and produces 15 to 20 times more air pollution than a typical electric car.


A Simple Therefore test ( Premise , therefore conclusion) or Why Test (Why Conclusion ? Ans = Premise) will help you pick the correct premise and conclusion.

Lets apply it to the problem.

1) Statement I is premise, Statement II is conclusion.

Baumgartner's comparison of the environmental hazards is misleading. Therefore, He examines only production of the cars,whereas it is the product's total life cycle that matters. --Does not make any sense. Our selection of Premise - Conclusion is not correct.

2) Statement II is premise, Statement I is conclusion.

Baumgartner examines only production of the cars, whereas it is the product's total life cycle that matters. Therefore, Baumgartner's comparison of the environmental hazards is misleading -- makes perfect sense.

Hence Statement II is the premise and Statement I is the conclusion.

This means Choice D, though true, is the premise. Choice A is the Conclusion.

conclusion: Baumgartner's comparison of the environmental hazards of gasoline-powered cars with those of electric cars is misleading.

A is paraphrasing of the conclusion and is the correct option.

+1 the explanation. Now i get it..I have to learn to split arguments into premises and conclusion to improve my accuracy..it makes it more systematic to answer draw conclusions questions..

(A) Baumgartner makes a deceptive comparison between the
environmental hazards of gasoline powered and
electric cars.---- Exactly what we want. CORRECT. Stated in the first line of the argument.
(B) The use of a typical
gasoline-powered car results in much greater
resource depletion than does the use of a typical
electric car.---- This is a premise stated in the argument but not the conclusion. The conclusion is that Baumgartner creates a misleading comparison because he does not take into account all the factors.
(C) Baumgartner uses inaccurate data in his
comparison of the environmental hazards of
gasoline-powered and electric cars.---- INCORRECT, because the data is not inaccurate but just not enough data taken into account by Baumgartner.
(D) The total life cycle of a product is what matters
in assessing its environmental impact.---- INCORRECT, What about the use, recycling? The answer choice does not mention all the factors that are mentioned in the argument.
(E) The production of gasoline-powered cars creates
more environmental hazards than does that of
electric cars.---- INCORRECT, because there is no information about environmental hazards. We are only concerned with how Baumgartner comparison is misleading.

Hello all,

Out of respect to the time of those on the forum, questions like this "What is the conclusion of the argument?" do not appear in official GMAT material. This is a question type that you'll see on the LSAT (Law School Admissions Test), but not on the GMAT.

Baumgartner's comparison does not take all data into consideration. Hence, it is deceptive/misleading.
That is correctly communicated in A.
(A) Baumgartner makes a deceptive comparison between the environmental hazards of gasoline powered and electric cars.


(D) The total life cycle of a product is what matters in assessing its environmental impact.
Too General.

But in option D, it total life cycle is mentioned in hyphen which includes recycling also.
why not D ?

Statement 1- Proper comparison is not done between gasoline-powered cars and electric cars
Statement 2- Because only one aspect is examined there are other factors too such as product's total life cycle-production, use, and recycling(Note all factors matters, may be in combination we don't know that)
Statement 3- comparison of some aspects of electric cars and gasoline cars is done

A- Can be inferred clearly
B- Nothing about depletion is mentioned (May be more electric cars are used and resource depletion because of electric car is more)
C- Data is not inaccurate only other aspects are not taken into consideration
D- Well there are other factors mentioned too, we cannot conclude this.
E- Nothing like this is mentioned in passage

hence A is clear Answer

VeritasKarishma GMATNinja
What is the total life cycle of the product ?
I believe it includes production,use,and recycling.
Thus option D is perfectly fine.
Please explain.

The conclusion is what the author wants to say - the reason he writes the argument. Why did the author write the argument above? To tell you that Baumgartner makes a deceptive comparison and then goes on to explain why he thinks so (because Baumgartner includes only production but actually all 3 stages should be included).
Option (D) is a premise of the argument. It is true as per the argument but it is not the reason the author wrote the argument.
_________________

vjsharma25

The author mentions at the start


If the 1st line is the premise then can the conclusion (corrrect answer choice) be paraphrasing the premise? Because when I read the correct answer choice it feels like its a re-worded premise.

Also if so, then why isnt answer choice (D) better?

Premise 1: Baum's comparison is misleading as he only takes the production lifecycle in the evaluation and not the consequences.
Premise 2: Gasoline cars consume 3 times more resources for Production
Premise 3: Gasoline cars produces 15-20 times more air pollution.

Which one of the following most accurately expresses the conclusion of the argument?

(A) Baumgartner makes a deceptive comparison between the environmental hazards of gasoline powered and electric cars.
Well, the word deceptive was the word(misleading used in the very first premise and proved correct in the following premises. We can keep this option in the bank.

(B) The use of a typical gasoline-powered car results in much greater resource depletion than does the use of a typical electric car.
It does, but that's not the conclusion. It is an inference.

(C) Baumgartner uses inaccurate data in his comparison of the environmental hazards of gasoline-powered and electric cars.

We don't know whether the data was inaccurate. We only know that the analysis was inaccurate.

(D) The total life cycle of a product is what matters in assessing its environmental impact.
If that's the only thing that matters, then our Premise 2, 3 will be invalid. And maybe the study was right.

(E) The production of gasoline-powered cars creates more environmental hazards than does that of electric cars.
Okay, yes this also holds as it reiterates the Premise #3

Now in A and E, A handles all the three 3premises and concludes that the whole study is faulty. While E only handles #3 Premise. So A precedes over E and hence ANSWER A

VeritasKarishma

What's wrong with Option B.

(A) Baumgartner makes a deceptive comparison between the environmental hazards of gasoline powered and electric cars. - Is A also not the premise ?
Baumgartner's comparison of the environmental hazards of gasoline-powered cars with those of electric cars is misleading. - This is stated in the first line of the argument. Is A not the paraphrasing of this one. Also, does misleading and deceptive mean the same in this case.

B. The use of a typical gasoline-powered car results in much greater resource depletion than does the use of a typical electric car. - I thought that this is the conclusion we can reach to after analyzing the complete argument.

Please correct me. Is this a GMAT style question?

Baumgartner's comparison of the environmental hazards of gasoline-powered cars with those of electric cars is misleading. He examines only production of the cars, whereas it is the product's total life cycle-production, use, and recycling-that matters in determining its environmental impact. A typical gasoline-powered car consumes 3 times more resources and produces 15 to 20 times more air pollution than a typical electric car.

Which one of the following most accurately expresses the conclusion of the argument?

(A) Baumgartner makes a deceptive comparison between the environmental hazards of gasoline powered and electric cars. - CORRECT. My only issue is with the word "deceptive". It can be true that it is a deceptive comparison but for that to happen our prior knowledge of the real world - that is of no use in CR - has to be taken into consideration. Without that we don't know whether its deceptive or not - we just know it is a conclusion, what it is actually as per passage we don't know.
(B) The use of a typical gasoline-powered car results in much greater resource depletion than does the use of a typical electric car. - WRONG. It's like E only. Specific activity concluded which is subjective, however, even after that we figure out this conclusion doesn't help.
(C) Baumgartner uses inaccurate data in his comparison of the environmental hazards of gasoline-powered and electric cars. - WRONG. Can't be right in claiming that inaccurate data was used. May be or may not be the case.
(D) The total life cycle of a product is what matters in assessing its environmental impact. - WRONG. Though true but it is misdirected. It leads to nowhere as far as conclusion(highlighted text) is concerned. Even if it is a conclusion, what after this. The passage just lingers on.
(E) The production of gasoline-powered cars creates more environmental hazards than does that of electric cars. - WRONG. Specific activity leads to more hazards is subjective and can't be a conclusion for this passage.

Answer A.
_________________