In parts of the Caribbean, the manatee, an endangered marine mammal, has long been hunted for its meat. Having noted the manatee hunters’ expert knowledge of manatees’ habits, local conservationists are encouraging the hunters to stop hunting and instead to take tourists on boat rides to see manatees. Tourist interest is high, so the plan has promise of achieving the twin goals of giving the former hunters a good income and helping ensure the manatees’ survival.

Which of the following, if true, raises the most serious doubt about the plan’s chance of success?

Endangered Animals are being hunted. The locals offered the hunter alernative income. Hunters would use boats and take tourists there. tourists are highly interested in seeing these animals. What is the main concern ? This plan wont be succssful

(A) Many tourists who visit these parts of the Caribbean are uninterested in manatees and would not be willing to pay what the former manatee hunters would have to charge for boat rides to see manatees. In the argument it is is clearly mentioned " Tourist interest is high" hence out of scope.

(B) Recovery of the species would enable some hunting to continue without putting the manatees’ survival in jeopardy again. ( we are not concerned with recovery of species) out of scope.

(C) In areas where manatees have traditionally been hunted for food, local people could easily replace the manatee meat in their diets with other foods obtained from the sea. ( we are not concerned with replacement of meat. out of scope)

(D) There would not be enough former manatee hunters to act as guides for all the tourists who want to see manatees. ( not concerned with number of hunters)

(E) To maintain their current income, manatee hunters who switched to guiding tourists would have to use far larger boats and make many more trips into the manatees’ fragile habitat than they currently do.

correct E option implies that this plan wont work. because hunters would have to use even larger boats to take tourists to fragile habitat.

mikellaverde

C is out of scope, nowhere is mentioned replacement of meat. The main idea is hunters would use boats to take tourists to those areas. so you need to weaken that part of argument that is relevant to main idea.

D is out of scope as well. nowhere is mentioned number of hunters. Who cares how many hunters are available.

refer to my post above. hope it helps

Hi MartyMurray,
I'm trying to figure out whole thing of this CR, but I'm fail to find out the following things.

Q1: What is/are the plan(s) here?
Q2: How E is the correct choice? Could you explain elaborately, please?
Thanks__

Hey AsadAbu!
Hope you dont mind me pitching in!

- In parts of the Caribbean, the manatee, an endangered marine mammal, has long been hunted for its meat.
- The hunters have an expert knowledge about these mammals and their habitat. Keeping this in mind, the conservationists plan isto convince the hunters to take tourists on boat rides to show the tourists these manatees (since the hunters already know well about the manatees and their habitat).
- Tourist interest to see the manatees is high.
- The plan's goal :
a) Give hunters a good income
b) Help the manatees survival.

Notice the words "fragile" , "many more trips" in option E.
So by having to switch to big boats and having do many more of these trips to the manatees fragile habitat, they are essentially ruining or damaging the habitat. This weakens the argument.


Extra on Option A -

Remember that many = 3,4,5,6.. to ALL!
And also we have a nice premise saying "tourist interest is high".
So "many" might be 3 or 4 or 5.... or ALL.
Here since we have that nice premise, It is best to avoid this option by assuming that "many" means something not very high.

Hope this helps!

We are told by the author that the manatee is an endangered species which continues to be hunted for its meat. To help preserve this animal, the plan is to convert the hunters into tourist guides who could guide the tourists, who are already highly interested in viewing the manatees, to the habitats of the manatees. This will help achieve the twin goals of protecting the manatees as well as ensuring a steady source of income for the former hunters. We need to find something that will counter the desirable goals of the plan.

1)We are already told in the passage that ‘tourist interest is high’. So this will clearly contradict the information in the passage.

2)This may end up strengthening the argument.

3)Even if the local people could replace manatee meat with other sources, there is nothing to suggest that they will be making this substitution.

4)Even if there is a shortage of manatee hunters, the authorities can always hire other people as guides.

5)CORRECT - If the guides have to make many more trips to the manatee habitats, which are already fragile, then the trips might put the manatees into further danger. Secondly, since the hunters have to use far larger boats, it may not be an economical deal for them to leave their current occupation of hunting and become tourist guides.

TAKEAWAY: IN CR ARGUMENTS THE FACTS CAN'T BE CHALLENGED. This is a classic argument in which most people end up marking answer choice A. The Author has already mentioned in the argument that the tourist interest is high..

Ron Purewal's super helpful reply on MGMAT forum:

we're looking to WEAKEN THE CONCLUSION.

the CONCLUSION is
"the plan has promise of achieving the twin goals of giving the former hunters a good income and helping ensure the manatees’ survival"

therefore, we can WEAKEN THE CONCLUSION by showing either
* that the plan will NOT give the hunters a good income, or
* that the plan will act to ENDANGER the manatees' survival.

--

the correct answer should be (e).
if the hunters would have to "would have to use far larger boats and make many more trips into the manatees’ fragile habitat than they currently do", then the manatees' survival is being placed at increased risk. note especially the pointed use of the adjective "fragile".

(a) is irrelevant.
it doesn't matter that MANY tourists are uninterested and/or unwilling to pay for the tours, since the passage has already guaranteed us that "tourist interest is high".
MANY just means that we can find a bunch of tourists who aren't interested. this doesn't, at all, weaken the conclusion that tourist interest is high.
analogy:
if i determine that, in some area, local interest in eating cheeseburgers is high, then i should probably open a burger joint (if there isn't already one open) in that area. if i find "many" people in the area that don't eat cheeseburgers, that doesn't impact my existing statement that local interest in eating the burgers is high - again, we don't need everyone to be on board.