Farmer: Several people in the past few years have claimed to have seen

Let's tweak answer D slightly jabhatta2 (just changing one word):
(D) There have been no regional reports in the past week of mountain lions migrating to the area.
Can you compare this to the original, please?

This original is this
(D - original) There have been no regional reports (in the past year) (of lions migrating to the area)


the only difference is week vs year

Using SC -- i think prepositional phrases - "in the past week" and "in the past year" refer to when the reports were drafted and NOT when the migration is actually occuring.

On 2nd thought -- maybe i am wrong about that ...maybe the lions have been migrating only for the last year or the last week respectively.

Not 100 % sure what does the prepositional phrase "in the past week" and "in the past year" modify ..

Irrespective,
"in the past week" OR "in the past year" === either variation of (D) weakens IMO

Do they weaken by the same amount, jabhatta2? If not, why not?

Hi avigutman - i can see the focus is on the times mentioned in the grey highlights (in the pic) - few years ago AND last month

But if you read the green higlight -- the conclusion is saying -- Need to be on the lookout NOW (present tense)

Thus i think (D') is better contender for weakener because it referring to a time closer to the present tense.

I'm afraid you have it the wrong way around, jabhatta2. The longer the period of time with NO reports, the more impact it has.
Consider these two options, when deciding which region you'd rather live in:
(1) There have been no regional reports in the past two minutes of robberies in the area.
(2) There have been no regional reports in the past two decades of robberies in the area.
Which of those gives you more comfort?

Hi avigutman - (2) is better...

In my analogy and i can see why (C) is better than any of the variations of (D)

thank you for your assistance so much...

Hi KarishmaB GMATNinja ReedArnoldMPREP

Although i have got this question using POE, i have a v.basic query:
I have learned that, premises in given CR ques are always TRUE, and we should never question the premise, as suggested in the various posters in the below ''Florida Alligator OG ques''

https://gmatclub.com/forum/in-the-1960s ... 39-20.html

But in this ''Mountain Lion'' question, aren't we weakening the premise itself? We are basically saying that those sightings are ''NOT 100% validated''

''Several people in the past few years have claimed to have seen a mountain lion''

Please help!

Notice the wording: Several people in the past few years have claimed to have seen a mountain lion... (not '...have seen a mountain lion')

(C) No person who claimed to have seen a mountain lion had anyone else with them at the purported sighting. (not 'No person who saw a ...')

The point is that the author himself is asking you to doubt whether the people saw the lion or not.

e.g. If I say, "You claim to have worked 40 hrs last week but..." and if I say, "You worked 40 hrs last week...," only in the second case is this a fact. In the first case, it is just your claim; it may not be a fact. It is a fact that you made this claim. But did you actually do it, I don't know.

Check out this video in which I discuss how this official question is different from the alligator official question because of this wording:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=55QgRwZmFRo

SignUp - You might find this link useful too.

Hi there. Great question.

First off, the advice to 'not doubt a premise' is *almost* always true. There are a *few* questions where 'doubting a premise' can be helpful. This one falls right on the border!

Notice what the premise says: "many people claim to have seen a mountain lion."

What would it mean to doubt that premise? We doubt that many people have *claimed* that.

That is, "Maybe actually, only a few people has claimed to see a mountain lion, several times?" or "maybe actually only one person, as a prank, is submitting all the claims of mountain lion sightings?"

It would also doubt the premise to say, "Actually, most of those claims were mis-filed, and the claims people made were that they saw a bob-cat."

That is to say, to doubt the premise would be to doubt the amount and quality of the *claims*.

But we're allowed to wonder, "Well, they *claim* to see a mountain lion, but maybe they didn't?"

Notice the difference between:

"Many people claim to have seen a mountain lion"

and

"Many people *have seen* a mountain lion."

In the second situation, we would *not* be allowed to say, "Actually, no they didn't."

Notice that the GMAT has given you a hint: There's no reason to think people have 'deliberately concocted a false report.'

...But what about *accidentally* concocting a false report? Thinking you see a mountain lion, making the claim... but being wrong? That's still allowed to ponder.
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Can't wrap my head around option C when the passage tells us that "there is no reason for the people who reported seeing a mountain lion to have deliberately concocted a false report"?

I chose D as it seems to me like the best answer choice.

Any thoughts please?

(D) has incorrect timeline. We are talking about reports of sightings in the past few years.
D talks about no reports of migrations in the past year. Just talking about past year makes no sense. So we don't even need to evaluate the other aspects of this option.

This video explains why the answer here is (C) and compares this question with another very similar one but with a different answer:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=55QgRwZmFRo

Hi MishalSen1,

To address your first point, we can attack any part of the argument, including statements like "there is no reason for the people who reported seeing a mountain lion to have deliberately concocted a false report". That is, the correct option could help us see that there is absolutely some reason or incentive for people to deliberately concoct false reports.

However, keep in mind that in this case the correct option works just as well if those people mistakenly (that is, not deliberately) reported seeing a mountain lion.
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Hi GMATNinja KarishmaB MartyMurray

What if option E said - "Recent surveys show that most of the people in the region report that they have never seen a mountain lion before."
In this case would option E be a correct choice.

Another question. Quantifier words usually have acceptable ranges like

all - 100%
Not all - 0-99%
None - 0%
Some - 1-100%

What does most mean in this sense. Is it a number close to a 100% or is "most" similar to "majority" in the sense it could be anything from 51% to 100%.


Also (sorry for the multiple doubts haha), what would be the ranges of words like few, many.

I assume few would possibly be anything less than 50% (we can't really justify using few if it is more than 50%, I believe) and many could be anything from 1% to 100% (so same as some in this regard?)


Thanks!!!

'Most' means 'majority'/ 'more than 50%'  so nothing would change in the option. Quanitifiers are often used to depict the intent of the author. 'Few' would mean 'hardly any'. 'A few' woud mean 'some'. 'Many' would mean a substantial number. You don't have to worry about giving a percentage to each of these quantifiers. Understand the intent of the author. 

Understood! But when we have to negate / take the logical opposite (as opposed to taking the polar opposite of these quantifiers), would we do something like this - logical opposite of few = not few ( more than few / a significant number more than hardly any) - logical opposite of a few = (Not a few / none) ?
Thanks!!

Query regarding passage understanding:

Is there any significance of 'deliberately concocting' ? eg. an actual false report would be mis-identifying another animal but it is not deliberate or concoction ?

C indicates that since there are no witnesses to ML sighting there is a chance of deliberate concoction of false reports or it could be an actual false report (eg given above)

Shouldn't the correct option just point towards deliberate concoction of false reporting only, why both cases?

­Hi skmaan,

We should try not to restrict ourselves to deliberate concoctions of false reports, because the question is quite open-ended. It just asks us to pick an option that would "most seriously weaken the farmer's argument". One way to do that is {false reports}. Another way is {mistaken sightings}.

More importantly, we don't really need to worry about which of the two is happening here. Option C works either way.
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When we negate a statement, we determine what the main point of the statement is and negate that point.

So, since "few are" means "not many are," the negation would be "many are."

How we would negate "a few" is a little tougher to call, but probably the negation is "none.," as you suggested.

So, it appears that you get the idea.

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­Got it! Thanks once again Marty!