Karin: Every time I go to the park, I notice that there are lizards

Question

Karin: Every time I go to the park, I notice that there are lizards. Usually when I see one, it is a Lacerta viridis, so there are probably a large number of lizards of that species in the park.

Lina: There might be a lot of lizards of that species in the park, but your experiences don't give much evidence that there are.

Select for  Supports Karin's inference  the statement that, if true, most strongly supports the inference that Karin draws, and select for  Supports Lina's position  the statement that, if true, most strongly supports the position that Lina expresses. Make only two selections, one in each column.

chetan2u · Accepted Answer

Pretty straight forward. But you would do justice to the question if you are able to solve it quickly and save time here to be used on a difficult question elsewhere.

Karin notices lizards in the park and usually a Lacerta viridis, so he infers that there are probably a large number of lizards of that species in the park.
Lina does not contest the inference but questions the evidence.

Since  the stand of Karin and Lina is dependent on the sightings by Karin , any sighting by Lina would not fit in. Discard A and B as  they talk of sightings or knowledge of Lina whereas the discussion is about Karin sighting the lizards .
C is out of context. Knowing about species does not affect any of the positions taken.

D. Most of Karin's lizard sightings in the park have been observations of the same individual Lacerta viridis.
If the above is true, the evidence of watching a Lacerta everytime does not support a large number of the species in the park.  Thus, it supports Lina's position

E. Karin has seen many lizards in many different parts of the park.
Now, Karin has seen lot of lizards in various parts of the park and everytime he does see a LV, so there must a lot of LVs in the park for karin being able to see one everytime.  Supports Karin's inference.

sayan640 · Answer

MartyMurray   KarishmaB  what are the reasons behind rejecting option A and B ?

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chetan2u · Answer

Discard A and B as  they talk of sightings or knowledge of Lina whereas the discussion is about Karin sighting the lizards .

What does the para tell us? 
Karin notices lizards in the park and usually a Lacerta viridis, so he infers that there are probably a large number of lizards of that species in the park.
Lina does not contest the inference but questions the evidence.

So, the entire discussion revolves around sighting by Karin and we have to support the Karin's inference or Lina's position.
Lina found none of that specific lizard or she found only that species in the park, how would these affect the  Karin's inference or Lina's position  because the inference and position are on Karin's sightings.

SergejK · Answer

Karin: Every time I go to the park, I notice that there are lizards. Usually when I see one, it is a Lacerta viridis, so there are probably a large number of lizards of that species in the park.

Lina: There might be a lot of lizards of that species in the park, but your experiences don't give much evidence that there are.

Select for Supports Karin's inference the statement that, if true, most strongly supports the inference that Karin draws, and select for Supports Lina's position the statement that, if true, most strongly supports the position that Lina expresses. Make only two selections, one in each column.

This is again a counter-point argument: the replier will attack the assumption of the initial conclusion. K states that every time she goes to the park (we actually don't know if she goes often or not), she sees lizards and mostly there are Lacerta viridis. She concludes that there must be a lot of Lacerta viridis in the park and we immediately realize that there are some connectors missing to understand her reasoning. Firstly, K must conclude that there are a lot, because she visited the park very often and hence saw a lot of them in the park. And then, she might assume that she is able to keep those lizards apart. Let's look what the counter-argument is telling us, maybe it will help us to see what the argument attacks. L replies that K's experience doesn't warrant her conclusion, even if there might be a lot of lizards in the park. So here, L actually attacks K's interpretation of the evidence, not the evidence itself. What could L attack? The fact that L can't keep the lizards apart and that she sees always the same specimen and misidentifies them for different lizards. So how could we strengthen our belief in K's first conclusion? As L is telling us that K misinterprets the evidence that she sees, we can't have them both argue the same point, not in GMAT at least. K could say that she saw a lot of them and L could counter that she always the same one. K won't argue that she is able to identify each specimen and L won't answer "No, you can't". Hence, E) for K and D) for L.

Dream009 · Answer

What's the trick to do these under 2 mins?

Bunuel · Answer

Karin: Every time I go to the park, I notice that there are lizards. Usually when I see one, it is a Lacerta viridis, so there are probably a large number of lizards of that species in the park.

Lina: There might be a lot of lizards of that species in the park, but your experiences don't give much evidence that there are.

Select for Supports Karin's inference the statement that, if true, most strongly supports the inference that Karin draws, and select for Supports Lina's position the statement that, if true, most strongly supports the position that Lina expresses. Make only two selections, one in each column.

This is a relatively straightforward question. Karin infers a large population from her repeated observations, while Lina points out that such personal observations may be weak or biased evidence. To solve this, we look for one statement that clearly strengthens Karin’s inference by making her observations more representative, and one statement that clearly weakens it by showing her evidence is limited or misleading.

Supports Karin’s inference:

Only one option actually strengthens the idea that Lacerta viridis is common. “Karin has seen many lizards in many different parts of the park.” This suggests her observations are broad and not limited to one spot, so they are more likely to reflect the true distribution.

All other options either add no support or weaken her inference.

Supports Lina’s position:

The strongest support for Lina is “Most of Karin’s lizard sightings in the park have been observations of the same individual Lacerta viridis.” This directly explains why Karin’s experience is weak evidence, since repeated sightings of one lizard do not indicate a large population.

The remaining statements are either irrelevant or much weaker.

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Karin: Every time I go to the park, I notice that there are lizards

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Supports Karin's inference	Supports Lina's position
		At least some of the lizards that Lina has seen in the park are of a species other than Lacerta viridis.
		Lina knows that at least three different species of lizards inhabit the park.
		Karin does not know how many different species of lizards inhabit the park.
		Most of Karin's lizard sightings in the park have been observations of the same individual Lacerta viridis.
		Karin has seen many lizards in many different parts of the park.

GMAT Two-part Analysis (TPA) Questions

Karin: Every time I go to the park, I notice that there are lizards

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