The tulu, a popular ornamental plant, does not reproduce naturally, and is only bred and sold by specialized horticultural companies. Unfortunately, the tulu is easily devastated by a contagious fungal rot. The government ministry plans to reassure worried gardeners by requiring all tulu plants to be tested for fungal rot before being sold. However, infected plants less than 30 weeks old have generally not built up enough fungal rot in their systems to be detected reliably. And many tulu plants are sold before they are 24 weeks old.

Which of the following, if performed by the ministry, could logically be expected to overcome the problem with their plan to test for the fungal rot?

(A)

Releasing a general announcement that tulu plants less than 30 weeks old cannot be effectively tested for fungal rot

(B)

Requiring all tulu plants less than 30 weeks old to be labeled as such

(C)

Researching possible ways to test tulu plants less than 24 weeks old for fungal rot

(D)

Ensuring that tulu plants not be sold before they are 30 weeks old

(E)

Quarantining all tulu plants from horticultural companies at which any case of fungal rot has been detected until those tulu plants can be tested for fungal rot

----------------
Hi,
Can you explain why (E) would not be the answer choice here? Fine it does seem a bit extreme a measure to take, but it could logically work?
Thanks.

On any "Resolve the Discrepancy" problem, such as this one, we need to be sure to stay as close to the exact wording as possible. So, what's the discrepancy we need to resolve? We need "to overcome the problem with their plan," so in particular we need to carefully understand both the plan and the problem with it. The plan, we're told, is "to reassure worried gardeners by requiring all tulu plants to be tested for fungal rot before being sold". But the problem is that many of these plants are currently sold (at 24 weeks) before they can be reliably tested (at 30 weeks).

To resolve this issue, we need an idea that will result in all plants being effectively tested *before* they are sold.

(A) Plants are still not tested, problem stands.
(B) Same problem as (A).
(C) That would be nice, but it relies on the assumption that such research would actually yield a solution. Don't bring in any assumptions to these problems.
(D) Does the trick exactly.
(E) This will partially fix the problem. But only at companies where fungal rot has already been detected. What about the companies that don't already have detected cases of fungal rot? They could definitely still have plants that do have it and have just slipped past detection. Never select an answer that only partially resolves the paradox. This is a pretty common wrong answer type on these!

Hope that clarifies!
Mark
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Mark Sullivan | Manhattan GMAT Instructor | Seattle, WA


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