A year ago, owing to spatial constraints, six turtles belonging to the

Question

A year ago, owing to spatial constraints, six turtles belonging to the city of Pasadena were moved from the Pasadena Zoo to a zoo in nearby Glendale. Over the past year, a marked increase in the frequency of non-fatal illness among turtles in the Glendale zoo was observed, prompting most people to surmise that the environment of the zoo in Glendale is not conducive to turtle health.

Which of the following claims would most seriously weaken the argument above?

(A) Healthcare for turtles at the Glendale Zoo has received consistently excellent ratings.

(B) Three of the turtles already in Glendale had recently had communicable diseases.

(C) The zoo in Glendale had no turtles prior to the importation of those from Pasadena.

(D) The turtles from Pasadena had all been declared in good health prior to moving.

(E) Crowding among turtles is known to be detrimental to their immune system function.

navderm · Answer

Totally lost on how C could be the answer !

aaparanjpe · Answer

C does not seem like a Weaken answer at all. Please help unravel this question.

AravindSastry · Answer

Not sure (C) can be the answer, nothing is said about their sickness/disease, the turtles may have fallen sick because of the environment at Glendale or because they had disease before they were moved to Glendale (but observed only later), both possibilities are equally open.

My vote for (B)

Experts, Please add your comments.

ankitdimania · Answer

I'm also lost on the question, none of the options weaken it to a sufficient degree. Here is my thinking:

Argument: in past 1 year, the frequency of non-fatal illness has increased, implying zoo environment is causing health problems.

(A) Healthcare for turtles at the Glendale Zoo has received consistently excellent ratings.
: Excellent ratings doesn't discount increased frequency of non-fatal illness. Zoo may be caring for them very well after they fall ill. Zoo can have good ratings of healthcare and bad environment at the same time. Ratings for health care IS NOT EQUAL TO zoo environment.

(B) Three of the turtles already in Glendale had recently had communicable diseases.
: I picked this. Existing turtles may or may not be defined as a part of zoo environment (I mean, is existing population a factor in environment? yes and no, so depends). Also, increased illness, by introducing new pathogens to population w/o immunity against it, isn't caused by bad environment, just bad luck.
But the argument says increased frequency of illness over a year, i.e. they are falling ill constantly, even when immunity should have developed over a year. So can't pick this one.

(C) The zoo in Glendale had no turtles prior to the importation of those from Pasadena.
: If zoo had no turtles prior, then zoo may be inexperienced in handling illnesses. But how good is incompetence an argument for not providing better health environment? It can be debated, but ultimately it CAN be debated so not sure about this argument.
: Also frequency went from 0 to a non-zero number. Increased? yes! But if the non-zero number is above average for a similar zoo, then can't weaken. So be careful.

(D) The turtles from Pasadena had all been declared in good health prior to moving.
: This strengthens the argument, that the whatever be the reason, it is coming from Glendale Zoo (not an existing health condition)

(E) Crowding among turtles is known to be detrimental to their immune system function.
: This strengthens the argument. Crowding is a part of environment, so environment is causing health problems.

As you can see, all options are bad, but C seems least bad. C argues:
1.) Zoo may just be incompetent, not intentionally bad
2.) The frequency went from 0 to a non-zero number (however low or high).
3.) The baseline is wrong. We can't compare with last year's frequency because last year there were no Turtles. Rather than comparing new frequency to last year's frequency, it should compare to average in other zoo.
4.) Falling ill is not a bad thing per say. It improves immunity over time, so any new environment should introduce new illnesses when facing seasons over a year in new place. (timeline of a year is mentioned because of seasons)
5.) Nothing is mentioned about turtles, so they could be old and falling ill without any reason also.

If this helps, Need Kudos

MartyTargetTestPrep · Answer

In order to support the idea that (C) is a weakener, the test-taker has to make unwarranted leaps in thinking, doing exactly what one should NOT do in answering a GMAT Critical Reasoning question.

Yes, it could be the case that, for instance, since before the six turtles were moved to the Glendale Zoo, the zoo in Glendale had no turtles, the zookeepers in Glendale were not very good at taking care of turtles. In that case, there would be a reason other than environment for the health issues the turtles were experiencing, the skill level of the zookeepers, and by presenting an alternative reason for the observed effect, choice (C) would weaken the argument.

The issue is, of course, that in deciding that, because these were the first turtles at the Glendale Zoo, the zookeepers there were not good at taking care of turtles, we have made an unsubstantiated leap, and created a convoluted, unsupported story, and while that story is not the only one we could create in order to make (C) into a weakener, none of the stories that we would create would be supported by the information provided by the passage and choice (C).

So, this question is broken, because there is no way for (C) to weaken the argument without the assistance of an unsupported story.

vishwajeet112 · Answer

Simply they are saying all that are present there are only from the pasdena so there is some problem could also be possible in population (i.e turtal) of the pasdena

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