Re: Group 11 Question 53: An increase in forest degradation has been...
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18 Jan 2021, 15:36
Official Explanation:
An increase in forest degradation has been attributed to the influx of visitors to the forest since it was opened to hikers a year ago. County officials deny that this is the case, claiming that the paths cleared for hikers were carefully situated so as not to interfere with the forest’s overall health.
Which of the following, if true, would provide the strongest support for the position held by the county officials?
(A) The number of hikers using the path has been substantially fewer than expected.
(B) The section of forest with the greatest amount of degradation is within 1100 yards of the hiking paths.
(C) Bicycle use, which can greatly damage forest undergrowth, is forbidden on the hiking paths.
(D) The county official who led the effort to open the forest to hikers is president of a group dedicated to protecting the local environment.
(E) The forest degradation began several years ago and has lessened somewhat in the last six months.
Question Type: Inference
Boil It Down: A forest opened to hikers a year ago. An increase in forest degradation has been attributed to them. Officials deny this, because the paths they cleared for hikers were carefully picked so as to not hurt the forest’s health.
Goal: Find the option that would provide the strongest or most logical support for the officials’ argument.
Analysis:
The question asks us “Which would provide the strongest support for the position held by the county officials?” We must first determine what the position of the county officials is. What are the county officials trying to prove? Here, the language should be obvious: “County officials deny that this is the case” and “[County officials] claim [sic] that …” The County officials are trying to prove that hikers are not causing the forest degradation because the paths for them were carefully chosen to avoid that outcome.
With that in mind, let’s pick a prediction which supports that position. My first thought goes to alternative explanations. If hikers aren’t causing the forest degradation, could there be another cause which happened to overlap with the new influx of hikers? Maybe at the same time the trails opened to hikers a huge company opened up their factory which is polluting the forest. Perhaps the weather has changed in recent years, causing degradation to get worse. That would give us an alternative explanation as to why it wasn’t the hikers causing the problem.
Let’s look for the most logical evidence to support the officials and their claim that hikers aren’t the problem here:
(A) The number of hikers using the path has been substantially fewer than expected.
This is incorrect. As with many wrong answers, people want to draw an unwarranted assumption out of the answer choice. There were fewer hikers, therefore they caused less degradation. However, we do not know how fewer hikers caused less forest degradation. There is nothing to connect those two without an assumption. Perhaps I would look again at this question if there is no other good answer choice, but for now I am hesitant because it’s asking me to make a large assumption.
(B) The section of forest with the greatest amount of degradation is within 1100 yards of the hiking paths.
This would destroy our argument. The officials are trying to prove that the hikers are not causing the forest degradation. However, if most of the forest degradation is occurring very close to the hiking trails, it seems to support the opposite conclusion that hikers are in fact the cause. This choice is incorrect.
(C) Bicycle use, which can greatly damage forest undergrowth, is forbidden on the hiking paths.
This choice is incorrect because it gets rid of a possible alternative explanation. For example, county officials could have argued that bikers, and not the hikers, are the cause of degradation. However, if biking is banned then we now have one less possible explanation. This option also forces us to make the assumption that people are biking on the hiking trails - and we have no evidence to show that they are or not. This does not support our position.
(D) The county official who led the effort to open the forest to hikers is president of a group dedicated to protecting the local environment.
Good intentions do not prove good outcomes. Sure, the county official who pushed this cares about the environment, and he would not want to cause forest degradation. But this does not prove that the hikers are not the cause of the degradation. This answer choice shows us nothing regarding why or why not hikers are a problem.
(E) The forest degradation began several years ago and has lessened somewhat in the last six months.
This is the correct choice. The forest degradation already started before the hikers had a large influx from the trails, but once the trails were introduced a year ago, the degradation began to lessen. It does not provide an alternative explanation like I predicted, but it does help prove that hikers are not the problem. If hikers were the problem, you would have expected degradation to increase once the trails were opened, not to decrease.
Don’t study for the GMAT. Train for it.
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