scurrier wrote:
I just got this wrong on the official GMAT Prep 2. I see a lot of reasons here why B is correct, but none explaining away E. To my understanding, they both provide about the same level of weakness?
B) Weakens the conclusion because if there is a pesticide shown to be effective at preventing insect infestations, then cotton prices will return to normal (assuming the farmers use them and that they fight of the insects within the "several years" mentioned)
E) Weakens the conclusion because if the insects do not attack soybeans, then the farmers may be harboring the insects and not know until they plant cotton.
Can someone help me here?
As you suggest, if the cotton grown in Ortovia gets infested by those nasty insects, that could weaken the argument. But does (E) suggest that's likely? Not really.
Quote:
(E) The species of insect that has infested cotton plants has never been known to attack soybean plants.
While your line of reasoning is pretty creative, notice all the assumptions it requires.
First, we'd need to assume that the cotton-destroying insects are present on the soy beans grown in Ortovia, or that they even exist in Ortovia in the first place. These are pretty big leaps, and are probably the weakest links the chain. After all, if the insects don't attack soy beans, why would they infest them?
Second, we'd need to assume the insects wouldn't be detected by the growers in Ortovia. This is also a big leap. Keep in mind -- just because the insects don't
destroy soybean plants doesn't mean they wouldn't be detected in some other way.
Third, we'd need to assume that the insects would somehow be transferred from the soy bean plants to the newly grown cotton.
Given that (E) requires three big leaps, it's hard to conclude that it "most seriously weakens the plan's chances for success."
Let's now consider (B):
Quote:
(B) Tests of a newly developed, inexpensive pesticide have shown it to be both environmentally safe and effective against the insects that have infested cotton crops.
The fact that the newly developed pesticide is
inexpensive,
environmentally safe, and
effective suggests that it could probably be widely used to kill the insects. This inference isn't airtight, but it doesn't require any huge leaps, as (E) does. For that reason, it's a better answer, and (B) is correct.
I hope that helps!
nkulkarni234 wrote:
pqhai wrote:
infymys wrote:
I chose C!
because B talks about a pesticide that would kill IF USED..
but we aren't sure whether it's going to be used right?
So i went for C!
What's wrong with my explanation?
I remmeber seeing plenty of questions where correct answer wasn't a probability of some even happening!
Hi infymys
The idea of the question is supply of cotton decreases ---> prices of cotton increase --> more profits for growers of cotton.
Let analyze B and C
B. Tests of a newly developed, inexpensive pesticide have shown it to be both environmentally safe and effective against the insects that have infected the cotton crops.
Correct. B clearly says the new pesticide is
effectively against the insects --> Supply of cotton will increase --> price of cotton will reduce. Your thought is whether the pesticide is used right? You infer too far. We can't infer that the farmers don't know how to use the new pesticide properly. You should keep in mind that "weaken" is not "destroy". Even the answer weakens 1% of the conclusion, the answer DOES weaken the conclusion and is correct. It does not have to destroy (weaken 100%) the conclusion.
C. In the past several years, there has been no sharp increase in the demand for cotton, and for goods made out of cotton.
Wrong. C just says demand does not increase.
Price will increase if the supply decreases while demand stay the same! Let imagine:
Before: Demand = 100, Supply = 100 ==> D & S meet each other.
After: Demand = 100 (No increase!), but Supply reduces to 50 --> Clearly price will increase.
Thus, C is wrong.
Hope it helps.
I actually chose C as my answer because I used the similar logic but interpreted it differently. The conclusion of the paragraph says, "many soybean growers in Ortovia plan to cease growing soybeans, the price of which has long been stable, and to begin raising cotton instead, thereby taking advantage of the high price of cotton to increase their income significantly at least over the next several years.".
My thought process was: because demand is NOT growing for cotton, then when all of these new soybean farmers join the cotton farming industry, it will saturate the industry and supply will spike, which in turn will make prices decrease. I chose C because in my opinion, this fact calls this plan into question. Thoughts?
As you suggest, this passage hinges on the idea that a reduced
supply of cotton caused the dramatic increase in its price on the world market. So it's only logical to conclude that a sufficiently large supply could cause the price to fall again.
However, notice that (D) talks about the
demand for cotton, not the supply. Theoretically, if an answer choice said something like "Ortovia is likely to grow as much cotton as the market lost due to the insect infestation in the first place," that could support your line of reasoning. As it is, however, we have no clue as to the size of the Ortovian cotton industry. Is it gigantic? Is it miniscule? We really have no idea. So to conclude that it will significantly impact the global supply of cotton requires an unsupported leap. And for that reason, we can eliminate (D).
I hope that helps!