Demographic experts predict that the global human population will reach its peak sometime in the middle of this century, after which it will begin to decline. Population growth is driven primarily by high birth rates in developing countries. It is known that when women have access to education and economic opportunities, they choose to have fewer children. Therefore, these experts propose expanding educational and economic opportunities to women in developing countries to bring about an earlier and smaller population peak. Which of the following, if true, provides the strongest grounds to doubt that the experts' proposal, if adopted, will achieve its aim? (A) The demographic experts proposing expanding opportunities for women in developing countries made the same recommendations over twenty years ago. (B) The experts' prediction is based on realistic assessments of the educational and economic opportunities that can be made available to women in developing countries before that time. (C) Many women in industrialized countries will continue to have four or more children despite access to a variety of educational and economic opportunities. (D) The demographic experts fail to explain why an earlier and smaller population peak is preferable to a later and larger peak. (E) Expanding opportunities to women in developing countries is generally considered a positive outcome regardless of its impact on population levels.

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Demographic experts predict that the global human population

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Mo2men

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24 Jan 2017, 11:30

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sayantanc2k

shikhaPorwal

Can you give explanation for the correct answer?

ankujgupta

Experts could you please help. I chose C and need to confirm whether it is correct or not

Premise: Education and economic opportunities for women result in women having fewer children.
Conclusion: Education and economic opportunities will help in earlier and smaller peak population.

A: Irrelevant - how long the proposal was made is not related to the link between the premise and conclusion.
B: If the assessment is realistic, then option B strengthens the argument.
C: This option highlights a reason why the proposal may fail. Many women will give birth to four or more children, and hence the lower peak as envisaged will not be achieved.
D: It does not matter why lower peak is preferable to higher peak. The argument is about the relation between the premise and conclusion stated above, not about the justification of the proposal.
E: This option does not have any relation to the link between the premise and conclusion.

Option C is correct. OA added.

Hi sayantanc2k,

I totally agree with you. However, it seems the author has another opinion.

https://www.gmatdaily.com/20110621-gmat- ... e-day.html

JanGMAC

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24 Jan 2017, 12:30

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Pavle

can anyone explain why is C and not D

Thanks

I also chose D - however, if you think about it more deeply, you will see that this statement does not really weakens the argument. It only states that the argument might be insufficient but not wrong...

sayantanc2k

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25 Jan 2017, 05:26

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Mo2men

sayantanc2k

shikhaPorwal

Can you give explanation for the correct answer?

ankujgupta

Experts could you please help. I chose C and need to confirm whether it is correct or not

Hi sayantanc2k,

I totally agree with you. However, it seems the author has another opinion.

https://www.gmatdaily.com/20110621-gmat- ... e-day.html

After reading the explanation by the author, I see his / her point. I would consider this question of high quality that may stump a candidate, unless he / she indentifies the difference between "prediction" and "proposal".

The prediction that population will peak sometime in the middle of this century is based on realistic assessment of educational and economic opportunities. Therefore it will not be possible to provide more opportunites than predicted, as proposed by the experts. Hence the proposal will be ineffective because it would not possible to provide opportunities required for the earlier peak.

However the explanation given by the author for option C is not correct. Option C is wrong because of the part "continue to", not because of the part "industrialized countries".

Reverting option C to its original form and OA to B. Thank you for the link.

Mo2men

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25 Jan 2017, 05:48

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sayantanc2k

The author's explanation is clearer than what he states in choice B. I did not like the question for poor wording. He explains something in his mind and going far from the choice by stating that "If the maximum possible opportunities are already present, and have been built into the prediction, the proposal will not bring about any changes in the population peak." I do not see how to arrive from "real assessment" to "max opportunity".

What I mean the explanation provides good ground but the choice itself not good at all, IMHO.

hotshot02

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25 Jan 2017, 07:57

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thanks for the confirmation buddy.

good one..

ramblers

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17 Feb 2018, 15:12

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OK we fixed C...but that doesn't really address the fact that B seems to actually strengthen the argument.

Quote:

(B) The experts' prediction is based on realistic assessments of the educational and economic opportunities that can be made available to women in developing countries before that time.

If their prediction is based on realistic assessments, then surely their prediction is realistic. If their prediction was based on unrealistic assessments, then their prediction would be unrealistic.

It really seems that as the "difficulty" of questions increases, the quality goes down...

AdiUpp1994

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02 Oct 2021, 08:43

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sayantanc2k

shikhaPorwal

Can you give explanation for the correct answer?

ankujgupta

Experts could you please help. I chose C and need to confirm whether it is correct or not

C is wrong for one major reason. The impact of introducing the opportunities in such countries has not been mentioned, just that even in the presence of such opportunities, women are going to continue doing something. That's a massive gap in reasoning. We do not know the birth rate in developed countries before the introduction of such opportunities, thus we can not comment on the efficacy of the suggested solution.
Also, the argument mentions that the rise in population is driven by developing countries and a solution is suggested given that context. The 4 or more in developed countries might not be adding as much in the world population rise and thus might be insignificant in evaluating the argument.

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Saksham_144

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13 Jun 2024, 03:59

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I am confused about why option B as it strengthens the proposal by saying realistic scenarios and doing it before time Where C is casting doubt directly

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14 Jun 2024, 01:39

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Hmm, this question is a bit sketchy. Sure, C can be eliminated, and most folks are missing the easiest way to do it. We can stop right at "many." We don't care what *many* people will do; we care what happens overall. So even if we ignore the "industrialized" part (which *is* also a problem), C fails because it doesn't tell us much about what will happen overall. It's like trying to say the president won't be re-elected because many people will vote for someone else. Fine, I'm sure they will, but that tells me nothing about who will win, and C tells us nothing about whether the population will peak sooner. We don't even know whether having 4 children is a lot!

B is definitely the only answer that comes close, but we have a problem. We don't know that the proposal is actually at odds with experts' predictions in the first place! All we know is that the population is supposed to peak sometime in mid-century. We don't know exactly when, nor do we know what the peak population will be. As for the conclusion, we don't know quite what "earlier and smaller" means--is that earlier and smaller than some more specific prediction we haven't seen? Or is it earlier and smaller than it would otherwise have been? If it's the latter, then we can take this measure and have an earlier, smaller peak than we'd otherwise have had, while still conforming with the predictions of experts.

Consider a sick person who is told that most people recover within a week. Hoping to have a quicker recovery, they take a medicine that they are told will cut recovery time by 50%. They take it and get better in a week. Is there a problem here? Not at all. If it turns out that most people take the medicine, but the few who don't take it need about 2 weeks to recover, then both predictions were true. The recovery took about a week, but it also took half as long as it otherwise would have.

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