The population of desert tortoises in Targland's Red Desert has declin

Answer should be B.
Closing only one access point will not work if other access points are open for vehicles.

Question understanding - Tortoises population has declined for couple of reasons. main step taken for protection is block vehicle entry in desert area. only pedestrians are allowed. and pedestrians can not collect tortoises without vehicle.

(A) Whether possessing the tortoises as pets remains legally permissible in Targland. --- this is not affecting the argument in any way possible. irrelevant

(B) Whether Targland is able to enforce the regulations with respect to all-terrain vehicle entry at points other than the current access routes. --- is response to this is yes and multiple access point are there to access the desert, then officials plan for protection of tortoises is not full proof. on the other hand if answer is no then well and good. Correct answer.

(C) Whether the Red Dessert Tortoises are most active during the day or at night ---- again irrelevant as this option is not affecting argument in either ways.

(D) Whether people who travel on foot in the Red Desert often encounter the tortoises --- this is a beautiful trap answer. and if by any chance you missed the last line of the stem then one is going to get caught. however if can can not carry tortoises without vehicle, then this choice has no effect on the plan .

(E) Whether the Targland authorities held public hearings before restricting entry by vehicle inot the Red Desert. --- irrelevant

Why not D if people who encounter tortoise kill them by stepping on them esp the baby tortoise

study mode

I understood why it's B as access point is a bigger evaluating point

study mode

Binggm14 - I thought exactly the same. but then I thought, how many people will go there and destroy things by stepping on them. more so ever accidentally or intentionally. When you compare this way you will find that chances are really less then they are in B.

Remember, Gmat ask you to choose best answer.

Right , [THUMBS UP SIGN]

study mode

Why A?

What if the fact that tortoises are popular pets is what is hurting the population?

Pierrealvarez - welcome to GMATclub - This one is evaluate question and you need to evaluate "Targland's officials predict that these measures will be adequate, since it is difficult to collect the tortoises without a vehicle." Now let me phrase up what you are saying.

the tortoises as pets remains legally permissible in Targland.and this way these measures will be adequate, since it is difficult to collect the tortoises without a vehicle.

Sound absurd to me. Explanations are given above. Let me know if you have any doubts. This might help you.
How to solve Evaluate type questions:

a. Usually a situation given in which implementation of a plan is discussed.
b. Focus on what to achieve.
c. Think every answer choice is possible, now how we can achieve our goal.
d. Consider two polar opposite response of the choice.

Two things are affecting tortoise population decline.
1. Visitors capturing tortoises in their vehicles.
2. Visitors damaging their habitat with vehicles.

My doubt is - What if one of the option is visitors on foot are as well destructing the natural habitat? In that case as well tortoises population will decline and the officials measures are of no use.

Is my thinking correct?

Official's predict that the measures to halt population decline, including blocking current access routes into the desert and restricting access to on-foot only, will be sufficient.

We are asked to evaluate the plan.

The plan assumes that they will be able to enforce access restrictions and on-foot travel.
A is besides the argument. The assumption made by officials is that if people cannot carry the tortoises without the aid of a vehicle then they won't be able to carry them away as pets, so A is besides the fact and is not conducive to the plan itself.

B is correct as it is an assumption that underpins the success of the plan, so by validating this assumption we validate the plan
C is irrelevant to the success of restrictions imposed
D - similar
E - again similar.

Also because the encounters not necessarily lead to collections.

The first step to tackle this question (or any CR question) is to identify the type of question.

The question states: "Which of the following would it be most important to establish in order to evaluate the officials' prediction?"

The phrasing of the question is very simple. Obviously, this is an "evaluate" type of question. The key word here is "prediction" whose verb form (predict) is repeated in the stem. "Targland's officials predict that these measures will be adequate, since it is difficult to collect the tortoises without a vehicle."

From here, our task becomes an easier one. The author claims that the measures consisting of blocking the current access routes will be a good response to the tortoise declining population issue. The author mentions the difficulty of collecting the tortoise without a vehicle to make a case for the suggested strategy. It is important at this stage to regard this premise (i.e., that tortoise are difficult to carry without vehicle) as a 100% true evidence.

Finally, we analyze the argument and identify the possible assumption(s). One that can be deducted easily is that people will not have another way of accessing the tortoise with their vehicles via other routes.

Because this is an "evaluate" type question, the correct answer should be phrased in a way that provides a situation and its alternative. One would typically strengthen the argument and the other would weaken it.

With all of this in mind, we can deduce that answer choice B is by far the best answer. The other answer choices are either irrelevant or require making further assumptions, as option D does.

D is tricky , the prompt is saying about catching the Tortoise not about the likelihood of encountering the one

Hence D can be eliminated

- Tortoise population in desert in decreasing - because people capture them and ATVs have damaged their habitat
- It is difficult to collect tortoises without a vehicle.
Plan: Block the current access routes into the desert and announce new regulations to allow access only on foot.

What will be useful to evaluate whether the plan will work

(A) Whether possessing the tortoises as pets remains legally permissible in Targland.

Doesn't matter. If it is hard to procure them, the plan might work.

(B) Whether Targland is able to enforce the regulations with respect to all-terrain vehicle entry at points other than the current access routes.

Yes. An important part of the plan is that vehicles will not be allowed inside. If they are unable to enforce no vehicle entry at all points, the plan may not work. If they are able to enforce no vehicle entry, the plan may work. So this is useful to evaluate whether the plan will work.

(C) Whether the Red Dessert Tortoises are most active during the day or at night

Irrelevant

(D) Whether people who travel on foot in the Red Desert often encounter the tortoises

Doesn't matter. Even if they encounter, they may not be able to collect without a vehicle.

(E) Whether the Targland authorities held public hearings before restricting entry by vehicle into the Red Desert.

Irrelevant

Answer (B)

Can evaluate problems in CR are required to introduce new info?

In Critical Reasoning, one of the biggest things to do is pinpoint the exact conclusion of the argument. What is that in this paragraph?




Try to be as specific as you can. If you say "The tortoise population will rebound," or "The tortoise population will stop declining," you're missing a key detail. The main conclusion is that the officials "predict that these measures will be adequate [to stop the tortoise population decline." What are 'these measures?' The ones they mention: blocking access routes to desert, and only allowing access on foot.

So that is the conclusion we want to question: "Will blocking the access routes and only allowing access on foot help reverse the tortoise population decline?" Officials think the answer is 'yes' because "it's difficult to collect the tortoises without a vehicle."

Well, I know laws are only as good as their enforcement. I also know it wasn't just the 'collection' of tortoises that was the problem, it was the damage to their habitat. If people can get vehicles in anyway, to either damage the habitat or collect the tortoises, seems like bad news.

A asks if possessing pet tortoises remains legally permissible. What A is doing is introduce a new thought that is technically out of scope. Outlawing having a tortoise as a pet *might also help the tortoise population recover* (if people were to obey that law)... But the thing is, this is a 'new measure.' I want to evaluate whether the stated measures will be adequate, not if there are other measures that have also been passed.

This is why it is so, so paramount in CR to lock your thinking around what the specific conclusion asks. This doesn't mean a right answer can't bring in something that isn't mentioned... It's just that the 'new thing' must be relevant to the specific conclusion. One of the easiest traps the GMAT can lay is to make an answer that isn't relevant to the specific conclusion, but is relevant to a different, but very similar, conclusion. The difference between: "the tortoise population will stop declining" and "these specific measures will stop the tortoise population from declining" is subtle but crucial to the argument we care about.
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ReedArnoldMPREP

That was quite a splendid explanation!

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