Bunuel wrote:
Dolphin sightings are common at Nine Mile beach. Usually dolphins avoid human beings, but sometimes they approach marine workers who offer them food. This has boosted the Nine Mile's appeal to tourists, who once congregated at a neighboring beach. In order to further increase the beach's popularity, therefore, marine workers have proposed implementing a permanent dolphin-feeding program.
Which of the following, if true, most strongly calls into question the likelihood that implementation of the marine workers' proposal will have the desired consequence?
(A) A permanent dolphin-feeding program would likely raise the number of dolphins visible to tourists on any given day.
(B) Business owners who depend on tourism are willing to pay most of the cost of implementing the program.
(C) Nine Mile beach does not offer the same quality of swimming or surfing as do neighboring beaches, but tourists travel from around the world to scuba dive there.
(D) Tourists are attracted to Nine Mile by the opportunity to see dolphins living in the wild, unlike at a nearby theme park, where the dolphins are fed by park employees.
(E) Not all tourists who come to Nine Mile beach are interested in seeing dolphins.
Official Explanation
Answer: D
The argument is straightforward. Marine workers recognize that dolphin sightings increase the popularity of a beach, so they think that more dolphin sightings will lead to more popularity. However, given the limits of the information given, the argument assumes that whatever leads to more dolphin sightings will not itself counteract the positive benefit of the larger number of sightings. To weaken the argument, we need to find a reason why that assumption is false.
Choices (A) and (B) strengthen the plan's likelihood of success, while (C) and (E) are not relevant.
Choice (D), however, is exactly what we're looking for. It tells us that the proposed method (further domesticating the dolphins) is not what attracts people to Nine Mile beach. (D) is correct.