Environmental scientist: It is true that over the past ten years, ther

Question

Environmental scientist: It is true that over the past ten years, there has been a sixfold increase in government funding for the preservation of wetlands while the total area of wetlands needing such preservation has increased only twofold (although this area was already large ten years ago). Even when inflation is taken into account, the amount of funding now is at least three times what it was ten years ago. Nevertheless, the current amount of government funding for the preservation of wetlands is inadequate and should be augmented.

Which one of the following, if true, most helps to reconcile the environmental scientist's conclusion with the evidence cited above?

(A) The governmental agency responsible for administering wetland-preservation funds has been consistently mismanaged and run inefficiently over the past ten years.

(B) Over the past ten years, the salaries of scientists employed by the government to work on the preservation of wetlands have increased at a rate higher than the inflation rate.

(C) Research over the past ten years has enabled scientists today to identify wetlands in need of preservation well before the areas are at serious risk of destruction.

(D) More people today scientists and nonscientists alike, are working to preserve all natural resources including wetlands.

(E) Unlike today, funding for the preservation of wetlands was almost nonexistent ten years ago.

nevergiveup · Answer

C, D and E are irrevelant to the argument. B scientist's salary has nothing to do with government funding.

A is the only one relates to the argument here.

GMATBLACKBELT · Answer

Straight E.

This is a numbers CR so itd help to write this down if u have trouble imagining it.

Lets say funding for Wetlands was 1$ 10 years ago. 10 years ago there were 10wetlands needing funding. funding is now 6$ and wetlands needing funding has increased to 20. from this it can easily be seen that funding is still drastically insufficient.

Also the 1$ (a little exaggerated) explains how funding was almost non-existant.

YangYichen · Answer

E is right then but don't show why A is not right?
A could also be an explaination to the situation there.

Skywalker18 · Answer

Environmental scientist: It is true that over the past ten years, there has been a sixfold increase in government funding for the preservation of wetlands while the total area of wetlands needing such preservation has increased only twofold (although this area was already large ten years ago). Even when inflation is taken into account, the amount of funding now is at least three times what it was ten years ago. Nevertheless, the current amount of government funding for the preservation of wetlands is inadequate and should be augmented.

Type-paradox

(A) The governmental agency responsible for administering wetland-preservation funds has been consistently mismanaged and run inefficiently over the past ten years.- incorrect; this deepens the paradox-
If the money has been consistently mismanaged, then the current amount of funding might be adequate
(B) Over the past ten years, the salaries of scientists employed by the government to work on the preservation of wetlands have increased at a rate higher than the inflation rate. - irrelevant; Salaries increasing at a rate higher than the inflation rate does not tell us that the level of funding is inadequate as there are lots of other things that add up to costs needed to preserve the wetlands.
Also, even if we assume that salaries of scientist are a major expense(from the fund), it still does not explain a 6x increase in funding.
(C) Research over the past ten years has enabled scientists today to identify wetlands in need of preservation well before the areas are at serious risk of destruction. - irrelevant; just the identification of more areas will not increase the need for funding
(D) More people today scientists and nonscientists alike, are working to preserve all natural resources including wetlands. - incorrect; at best this is not relevant and at worst this deepens the paradox as have all working to preserve
(E) Unlike today, funding for the preservation of wetlands was almost nonexistent ten years ago.- Correct; If the initial funding amount ten years was very little, then six times of that amount will still be little today

Answer A

KaranB1 · Answer

@martytatgettestprepmurty @varitaskarishma  egmat   GMATNinja

can u please tell me why option choice B is not better off e

ahabib · Answer

Good explanation overall, I would have liked a bit more detail on why answer choice A deepens the paradox :p

Also; You mistakenly said "Answer A" although you clearly meant "Answer E"

And to add to WHY answer choice A is wrong:

To paraphrase the passage: A certain project has had consistent increases in funding over the past 10 years. Although the project is now receiving 3x the funding it was 10 years ago, and the project has only doubled in size since then, we should increase funding even further.

We are asked to  reconcile , i.e resolve the paradox, or for this case: Why should we follow the suggestion given all the facts presented?

Answer choice A tells us: "Well because the project is being mismanaged!"

This isn't a logical argument ANYONE would reply with. How do we know that further funding won't actually make the mismanagement of funds EVEN WORSE?

As skywalker said, this deepens the paradox, it's not actually an explanation.

Rakeshtewatia · Answer

Can anyone Please explain why "B" is wrong?

ahabib · Answer

You're looking to explain why it is that the seemingly contradictory statements aren't actually contradictory. (B) does nothing to address this; if you think it does can you explain how?

First we should establish whether you understand the passage & question (I find this to be very tough even as a native)

And second, we should establish whether you have correctly identified premises and conclusion

Posted from my mobile device

rish2708 · Answer

I also think answer can be B. The statement says that the funding has multiplied 6 times and adjusting inflation it is 3 times, an amount seems legit with the growth but still more is required. Why?

Maybe the funding is going somewhere else and option B says that the scientists are getting more money as it is costlier than inflation. Bingo! It says the costs are more going towards salaries and yes it will undermine the three times funding.

Based on the above reasoning, I would prefer option B over A or E.

GMATNinja · Answer

Before jumping into the answer choices, let's take another look at the key pieces of the passage and the question stem.

The environmental scientists concludes that:
 
S/he reaches this conclusion  despite  the following evidence:

"Over the past ten years, there has been a sixfold increase in government funding for the preservation of wetlands while the total area of wetlands needing such preservation has increased only twofold." 
 "Even when inflation is taken into account, the amount of funding now is at least three times what it was ten years ago."

So, despite the fact that funding has at least tripled in the last ten years while the area of wetlands needing protection has only doubled, the scientist concludes that the government funding "is inadequate and should be augmented."

Our task is to the answer choice that, "if true,  most  helps to reconcile the environmental scientist's conclusion with the evidence cited above."

Let's take a look at (E) first:
 
This reconciles the scientist's conclusion with the evidence nicely, because the evidence sets up a comparison between the growth of funding (at least tripled) and the growth of protected land (only twofold) in the past ten years. Tripling an "almost nonexistent" amount of funding could easily mean that the funding is still inadequate, even if the protected land area has increased at a lower rate than has the amount of funding. (E) is looking good.

This statement provides one potential reason to validate increased government funding, but does it truly reconcile the evidence and the conclusion? The statement simply does not provide enough information to answer that question. For example, funding for the wetlands has already increased at a rate higher than the inflation rate -- does this gap account for the increase in scientists' salaries, or is the increase in funding still inadequate? We do not have enough information to know one way or the other.

The question stem asks us which answer choice " most  helps to reconcile the environmental scientist's conclusion with the evidence." (B) may be tempting, but as it does not clearly reconcile the conclusion with the evidence, we can eliminate it.

(E) is the correct answer.

I hope that helps!

VerbalBot · Answer

Hello from the GMAT Club VerbalBot!

Thanks to another GMAT Club member, I have just discovered this valuable topic, yet it had no discussion for over a year. I am now bumping it up - doing my job. I think you may find it valuable (esp those replies with Kudos).

Want to see all other topics I dig out? Follow me (click follow button on profile). You will receive a summary of all topics I bump in your profile area as well as via email.

Environmental scientist: It is true that over the past ten years, ther

Prep Toolkit

Top 5 GMAT Debrief Videos

615 to 715 in 15 Days (Ria's Strategies)

More than Quant/Verbal Abilities: Speed vs. Accuracy

745 with Only Self-Prep and GMAT Club

From 555 to 765: 210-point Improvement

Perfect 805 Score Debrief by Julia

My Rewards

GMAT Critical Reasoning (CR) Questions

Environmental scientist: It is true that over the past ten years, ther

Prep Toolkit

615 to 715 in 15 Days (Ria's Strategies)

More than Quant/Verbal Abilities: Speed vs. Accuracy

745 with Only Self-Prep and GMAT Club

From 555 to 765: 210-point Improvement

Perfect 805 Score Debrief by Julia

My Rewards