Equipment used by private biotechnology-research firms becomes obsolet

None of the answers even remotely support the claim that "biotech industry lobbyists are responsible for the tax proposal". None of the answers even suggest lobbyists were involved with the legislation. The only answer that's even vaguely relevant is D, since at least that rules out another possibility - that a different industry lobby was responsible. But that wouldn't be a good answer to a question like this, because we still have no reason to think lobbyists had anything to do with it.

D is very clearly a better answer than the "OA" of B, though. B, like a few of the answer choices, effectively just restates a premise of the argument, and you never strengthen arguments by restating premises. If B is "right", then almost every answer is "right" for some reason or other.

Hi
Just a small observation,
other firms not lobbying for proposal doesnot mean biotech firm has lobbied for the proposal

Yes, exactly - that's why I said D was not a good answer here. It is, however, the only answer that can even be tenuously supported. Real GMAT questions aren't like this one - the right answer to a real GMAT CR problem is always clearly right, once you understand the logic - so there's no reason to worry about this particular problem.

I did get it wrong. My shortlisted answers were B and C and I chose C.
Now the question asks to prove whether the biotechnology industry lobbyists were responsible, not the presenter.
This was the missing piece between B and C.

Hello, everyone. First off, I want to say that I agree with what IanStewart has written above about the tenuous connection the passage presents regarding the proposed legislation and lobbyists of any sort. If we are to assume, however, that the claim is valid, since the question itself is asking us to support it, then we can approach the task a little differently and consider which of the five options provides the most logical rationale behind the claim. That is, why would the proposed legislation have ties to biotechnology industry lobbyists in particular? We need to break down the passage carefully.



Sentence 1 presents an inverted structure in conclusion/premise when we are used to seeing the opposite. Straightened out, we are to gather that because biotechnology advances so rapidly, equipment within that industry faces obsolescence faster than that used in other businesses.

Sentence 2 introduces the tax proposal from the question, one that would affect equipment replacement costs in every industry—crucially, not just in biotech.

Sentence 3 states the main conclusion, the one we have to assume is correct to tackle the question: biotech lobbyists, as opposed to those from other areas of business, are the driving force behind the proposal.

For the conclusion to be valid, we have to find an answer that provides a reason to single out the biotechnology industry from all the others that could have set their own lobbyists to propose the legislation instead. Because of the not-so-firm foundation upon which the question stands, I am going to do things a little differently from my usual presentation. Rather than single out text in the answer choices to color in red or green, I will simply highlight some topics that warrant further consideration.

This is, I believe, a restatement of the conclusion part of sentence 1. I highlight the above because loses its value more quickly has to be conflated with becomes obsolete more quickly from the passage, and value needs to be interpreted as an ability—i.e. the ability for equipment to keep up with current biotechnological research avenues—rather than as anything tangible, such as a dollar value. Although the biotech industry would understandably have an interest in getting the new bill passed, so, too, might another tech industry, say, nanotechnology, that was a close runner-up in the obsolescence department. There is no why here behind the what. That is, we get no further insight into a potential motivation for the biotech industry to lobby for legislation than what the passage has already laid out for us.


It is funny how one little word can turn a premise into a motivation, and expect does just that. This information provides an incentive for biotechnology firms, our target group, to act on the problem that businesses in every industry may face: the need to replace old equipment with new. A forecast that current trends will continue for the foreseeable future would understandably spur the biotech industry to act sooner rather than later to get these tax breaks. This is not an ironclad answer, but it is better than the pure restatement of a conclusion in choice (A).


This is a classic sleight of hand. While we are supposed to be focusing on the biotechnology industry in the present to tease out a link to the tax bill, this answer tosses us a legislator with former ties to the industry instead. Although I feel the statement is overused, correlation is not causation, and this link is weaker than the one provided by choice (B).


At least we know no other industry is responsible for the bill, but does that necessarily implicate the biotech industry? Nope. Besides, we are looking for probable cause, not tangential evidence. This answer fails to deliver.


This one is difficult to assess without further qualification of competing. I would think that competing firms would be those within the same industry. Guiding my reasoning is that the earlier part of the answer references a biotechnology firm, so the answer on the whole seems to be pitting one biotech firm against other biotech firms. If so, why would we have a reason for the biotech industry in its entirety to get the proposed legislation passed, when all such firms would be affected equally, not to mention those outside the industry? This will not do. If we take competing to refer instead to firms in somewhat related technological industries, as in, [a biotechnology firm] will be driven out of business by competing [non-bio-technology] firms, then we are really going out on a limb and jamming a square peg into a round hole. (Hey, I like to climb trees and do fun things up there.) I like to say that if you find yourself bending over backwards to justify an answer, it is almost assuredly going to be wrong. This interpretation of competing and the answer it is attached to only further the point.

In the end, I feel as though I can see how (B) best fits the rationale of what the question-writer was going for. You can only go by what you see on the screen in front of you, not by what you want to be there. Would I expect to see the question, as is, on the GMAT™. No. Is the question pointless, then? Well, I spent over two hours typing out this analysis and revising it after a busy day. I hope my efforts have not all been in vain. If you think with a little more intent about the small things that make CR passages and questions operate, then I suppose...

Happy studies, everyone.

- Andrew