Goats are world’s best grass land grazers by eating away almost all of

Question

Goats are world’s best grass land grazers by eating away almost all of the plants other than grass including poisonous plants in prairies and pastures. Grass is the last choice of these cattle, although they may damage some useful plants that are left unprotected. Goat’s saliva contains an array of enzymes that neutralize the poisons in the plants. It also contains chemicals that stop the growth of unwanted plants. In addition, they enrich the pastures by their excretions, making the grass grow more vigorously. Also we cannot forget the high quality protein meat and quality milk they give us. Thus goats are undoubtedly one of the best environmentally, economically, and socially valuable animals of our planet.

Which of the following would be most useful to determine in order to evaluate the argument?

(A) Whether goats all over the world have such a plant growth limiting action?
(B) Whether any animals other than goats possess such capabilities comparably?
(C) Whether the chemicals that goats possess can also destroy useful plants other than grass?
(D) Whether grass can get damaged while the goats are grazing unwanted plants?
(E) Whether the meat and milk are as good as cow’s or buffalo’s products?

mba1382 · Accepted Answer

This one took time in reading and understanding. Tough one for me.

IMO C

Conclusion: Thus goats are undoubtedly one of the best environmentally, economically, and socially valuable animals of our planet.

We need to evaluate bold faced aspects of the goats from stem info

Below is my reasoning:
A. Whether goats all over the world have such a plant growth limiting action? -- Doesn't affect our conclusion from the bold faced aspects. Even if some goats have a plant growth limiting action, still our conclusion holds
B. Whether any animals other than goats possess such capabilities comparably? --We are concerned here about goats not any other animals.
C. Whether the chemicals that goats possess can also destroy useful plants other than grass? --If chemicals possessed by goats destroy useful plants then goats are not valuable from bold faced aspects. But in case, goats do not destroy the useful plants then our claim is strengthened
D. Whether grass can get damaged while the goats are grazing unwanted plants? -- We don't know what value grass has i.e if grass gets damaged, we are still not in a position to evaluate bold faced aspects. In other words, this is irrelevant for the lack of info
E. Whether the meat and milk are as good as cow’s or buffalo’s products? -- we have already evaluated this so it doesn't affect our conclusion.

Please post OA and OE. Good question :-)

sanjeebpanda · Answer

Goats are world’s best grass land grazers by eating away almost all of the plants other than grass including poisonous plants in prairies and pastures. Grass is the last choice of these cattle, although they may damage some useful plants that are left unprotected. Goat’s saliva contains an array of enzymes that neutralize the poisons in the plants. It also contains chemicals that stop the growth of unwanted plants. In addition, they enrich the pastures by their excretions, making the grass grow more vigorously. Also we cannot forget the high quality protein meat and quality milk they give us. Thus goats are undoubtedly one of the best environmentally, economically, and socially valuable animals of our planet.

Tough....

Conclusion :Thus goats are undoubtedly one of the best environmentally, economically, and socially valuable animals of our planet. 
Premise:
1.Goats are world’s best grass land grazers
2.It also contains chemicals that stop the growth of unwanted plants.
3. In addition, they enrich the pastures by their excretions
It means the the goat helps in so many ways and hence we reach to the conclusion.

Which of the following would be most useful to determine in order to evaluate the argument?

A. Whether goats all over the world have such a plant growth limiting action?  //If 1% goats doesn't have then it is not going to change the conclusion .
B. Whether any animals other than goats possess such capabilities comparably? //One of the best.So if other animal has these features then also it doesn't matter.
if it would have been the only animal ,it might have caused us to rethink. 
C. Whether the chemicals that goats possess can also destroy useful plants other than grass? / /The stimulus tells about the un useful plants.So it is essential to know about the usefull plants.Hence The correct ans. 
D. Whether grass can get damaged while the goats are grazing unwanted plants?//It helps to grow grass.
E. Whether the meat and milk are as good as cow’s or buffalo’s products?  //Not required.The quality is not compared rather stimulus says it gives protein milk.

semwal · Answer

CLEAR "C"- LETS ANSWER IN "YES"/ "NO"---
1. Whether the chemicals that goats possess can also destroy useful plants other than grass? YES THEY DO----Thus goats may not be the best environmentally, economically, and socially valuable animals of our planet.
2. Whether the chemicals that goats possess can also destroy useful plants other than grass? NO THEY DONT----Thus goats may be the best environmentally, economically, and socially valuable animals of our planet, GIVEN THE OTHER BENEFITS IN THE STIMULUS..........

SO , THIS QUESTION IS PERFECT IN EVALUATING THE STIMULUS ARGUMENT...........CORRECT ANSWER" C".....

ankur1901 · Answer

Really like the unambiguous answer choices. Very good question.
IMO C

dheeraj24 · Answer

Initially i too opted for C in less than a minute , but after through reading the passage again got a doubt .
"although they may damage some useful plants" this sentence is given in the passage itself.
Then how does choice C Weaken or strengthen the conclusion.
Let's analyze choice C option
c) Whether the chemicals that goats possess can also destroy useful plants other than grass?

If answer is Yes , this does not weaken the conclusion because "although they may damage some useful plants" is already given in premise.

Let us go through Choice B
b) Whether any animals other than goats possess such capabilities comparably?/
If answer to this question is Yes, then it weakens the conclusion
If answer to this question is no , then it strengthens the conclusion.

Moderators, please help over this
Is my thinking correct or am i flawed in this reasoning ??

Thanks in advance

Shreshtha55 · Answer

Can anyone explain why B is wrong and C is right? when we ans yes or no in option B it strengthens or weakens the argument but this is not the case in C. Can someone help me correct my understanding. Where am I wrong? What am I missing?

Luca1111111111111 · Answer

The conclusion is: Thus goats are undoubtedly one of the best environmentally, economically, and socially valuable animals of our planet.

B. Whether any animals other than goats possess such capabilities comparably? 
-> We concluded that goats are "one of the best". This does not mean that they are the best but does mean that their exist other animals which are similar in their value. Therefore, it is not necessary to know more about other animals. We rather want to focus on the goat itself. 
C. Whether the chemicals that goats possess can also destroy useful plants other than grass? 
-> Correct, because if chemicals possessed by goats destroy useful plants then goats are not valuable anymore (defined by the bold face e.g. environmentally friendly and destroying useful plants do not work together). Therefore, if goats do not destroy the useful plants then our claim is strengthened.

I hope that helps

amuban · Answer

I am not able to understand why option B is not the correct one . 
By evaluating option B we can know for sure whether goat is such an important animal.

Shreshtha55 · Answer

let me help you out here. When we evaluate B we get two possibilities there are other animals like goats or there are no animals like goats. It would have been useful to determine the argument if it had not been given that goats are one of the best  environmentally, economically, and socially valuable  animals of our planet. You see one of the best implies that there can be other animals as well. We don't know that Hence B is not helpful in evaluating the argument here. As for C if the goats' chemical stops the growth of plants and also destroy useful plants, then you will not consider goats useful anymore.

firas92 · Answer

Why do we need to evaluate whether useful plants can be damaged when we're already given in the second sentence that the goats may damage useful plants?

azhrhasan · Answer

daagh   nightblade354

Please guide.

Confused between C&D. 
Why do we need to evaluate whether useful plants can be damaged when we're already given in the second sentence that the goats may damage useful plants?

daagh · Answer

azhar

Goats are world’s best grassland grazers by eating away almost all of the plants other than grass including poisonous plants in prairies and pastures. Grass is the last choice of these cattle, although they may damage some useful plants that are left unprotected. Goat’s saliva contains an array of enzymes that neutralize the poisons in the plants. It also contains chemicals that stop the growth of unwanted plants. In addition, they enrich the pastures by their excretions, making the grass grow more vigorously. Also we cannot forget the high quality protein meat and quality milk they give us. Thus goats are undoubtedly one of the best environmentally, economically, and socially valuable animals of our planet.

Which of the following would be most useful to determine in order to evaluate the argument?

A. Whether goats all over the world have such a plant growth limiting action?
B. Whether any animals other than goats possess such capabilities comparably?
C. Whether the chemicals that goats possess can also destroy useful plants other than grass?
D. Whether grass can get damaged while the goats are grazing unwanted plants?
E. Whether the meat and milk are as good as cow’s or buffalo’s products?

Before wanting to solve this question, let's keep these facts in front.
 
1. Damaging is not the same as destroying. The prompt talks only of damage to some useful plants but not of destroying them. Destroying means total annihilation and those plants cannot re-grow. Damage means they can regenerate. This is the concept behind trimming a plant

2. It has been clearly stated that the chemicals the goats possess neutralize the poison possessed in poisonous plants and stop the growth of unwanted crops. On the contrary, these chemicals do not affect useful plants since useful plants do not possess poisons. The small external damages these useful plants suffer are reversible.

Choice D is not even in the picture because grass is a useful plant, and as long as the goats do not over do it, one can't claim that grazing is a damage, especially when grass is the last choice of the cattle. B is also not in the reckoning as goats have already been declared as one of the most valuable animals meaning that there are also some other equally valuable animals. There is no point in re-evaluating a closed matter.

C on the contrary challenges that if somebody can prove that the chemicals can destroy useful plants against the normal belief, then one can raise a banner of revolt against the argument. That is how we can evaluate whether goat is one the most valuable or less valuable animals.

C is the answer.

ArtVandaley · Answer

Is this really an OG question?

I am sure that much of my preparation was done on OG 18 and I never saw this question. Moderators, can you please check and edit the tags accordingly?

nyadavalwar · Answer

Option B: Look at the Conclusion which says, Goat is on of the best .........
Now try to Answer the questions given in Option B 
"YES" other animals comparable to goat exist. ( So what, premise already said it is just one of the best, not the only one. It was kind of implied)

Also, it can be seen as premise is all focused on goat, so this choice is also irrelevant to the passage

Anandanwar · Answer

Hello, I need a little help here

. The argument says that "'Goat's saliva contains enzymes that neutralize the poisons in the plants. It also contains chemicals that stop the growth of unwanted plants" 'Goat's saliva' is the concern here, since it spreads on plants when they graze. Choice C: Whether the chemicals that goat possess can also destroy... Here it says 'possess'. Goats may posses many chemicals (digestive fluids, etc) which can destroy useful plants. But does the saliva contain those chemicals? Goat simply possessing destructive chemicals should not matter here

. In comparison Choice D looks better. But again the argument also states 'they may damage some useful plants'. How should we choose here?

VerbalBot · Answer

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Goats are world’s best grass land grazers by eating away almost all of

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