In parts of the Caribbean, the manatee, an endangered marine mammal, h

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.

Video solution from Quant Reasoning:
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The controversy of Option A and why Option E is correct



Let us assume there are 10000 tourists and 8000 don't care about the manatees, 1000 are undecided, like 'yeah, whatever man!!' and the remaining 1000 are really interested. The author says that the interest of these 1000 people is high enough for his the plan to proceed. He doesn't care about the rest for his plan and we shouldn't too.

So we don't care about the people who are not interested. The premise says that the interest is high and this is a fact. Don't try and question the premise. So Option A is not controversial or 'breaking the premise' as some in the discussion are suggesting ; Option A is more 'out of scope or irrelevant' as far as this question is concerned as the sample space we are concerned about are the people who are interested in the manatees in the first place.

In weakening questions we should rather be trying to weaken the conclusion that the author draws from these facts or premises using new information if available.

So in this question it is given that tourist interest is high and the author concludes that his plan will achieve twin goals. Look for statements which might suggest that these twin goals might not get achieved.

Option E captures the essence beautifully. It makes us question whether the hunters can really get good income when they need to make large initial investments in buying larger boats just to maintain their current income and whether manatee's survival can be ensured when more trips are being made to their 'fragile' environment !!

Understanding the argument -
In parts of the Caribbean, the manatee, an endangered marine mammal, has long been hunted for its meat. Fact
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. Plan 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. - Conclusion. Two goals: "giving the former hunters a good income and helping ensure the manatees’ survival."

Option Elimination -

(A) Some 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. - "Some" can be at least 2 or 2%. Ok. So, say 98% are still interested. The conclusion is still valid. Distortion.

(B) Recovery of the species would enable some hunting to continue without putting the manatees’ survival in jeopardy again. - Scope of our argument is to weaken the plan's success - what plan? Hunters take tourists. For what? To earn more and also save Manatees. So this option says, "Recovery would enable some hunting." Does this hypothetical is linked to our scope? No. 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. - at best, a strengthener.

(D) There would not be enough former manatee hunters to act as guides for all the tourists who want to see manatees. - Even better. The supply of hunters is less, and demand is more. They can make good money, which is the objective. At best, a strengthener.

(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. - First, even to make the current income (we aren't talking about more), they need bigger boats and, even then, to make more trips, which eventually impacts the fragile habitat of manatees, thus further harming them. So, the Manatees get harmed even if they make more trips in the future; the tourists may not see manatees, which eventually means future business loss. It's a loss-loss scenario. Weakener, we need.