Xani and Yata are the only two languages spoken in the country of

Question

Xani and Yata are the only two languages spoken in the country of Zorba, with Xani
spoken by the majority of Zorba’s residents. Thus, by learning Xani prior to visiting
Zorba, tourists can feel confident that they have done the most that they can to assist in communicating with Zorba’s locals

(A) Travelers to Zorba will not visit other countries in addition to Zorba.
(B) Xani is easier to learn than Yata.
(C) Most tourists are committed to effectively communicating with the residents of the countries that they visit.
(D) Learning both Xani and Yata would not allow tourists to better communicate with the residents of Zorba than would only learning Xani.
(E) Xani and Yata are both commonly spoken in countries other than Zorba.

paddy994 · Answer

Premise: with Xani spoken by the majority of Zorba’s residents.
Conclusion: Thus, by learning Xani prior to visiting Zorba, tourists can
feel confident that they have done the most that they can to
assist in communicating with Zorba’s locals. At first glance the argument does not seem to have any gaping holes. This
would suggest a Defender answer is coming, and indeed that is the case.

Answer choice (A): The author does not need to assume this statement
because the stimulus is specifically about visitors visiting Zorba and
communicating with Zorba’s locals.

Answer choice (B): The ease of learning a particular language is not under
examination in this question. This answer is thus irrelevant to the argument.

Answer choice (C): The author’s argument concerns what tourists can do to
assure themselves that they have done the most they can in order to assist in
communicating with Zorba’s locals. Whether tourists are committed to
taking those steps is not part of the argument. When faced with the negation
of the answer choice, the author would likely reply: “They may not be
committed, but if they want to do the most they can, they should learn Xani
prior to visiting Zorba.” As you can see, the negation has not undermined the
author’s position, and so this answer is incorrect.

Answer choice (D): This is the correct answer. The key to this answer is
the conclusion of the argument, where the author states that “tourists can feel
confident that they have done the most they can do to assist in
communicating with Zorba’s locals” (italics added for emphasis). Because
the author states that learning just the one language spoken by the majority of
Zorbans is doing the “most they can do,” this answer defends the conclusion
by indicating that it would not be better to learn both Zorban languages. If
this answer did not make sense at first glance, you should have noted the
negative language and then negated the answer. Applying the Assumption
Negation Technique produces a statement that would clearly attack the
conclusion: “Learning both Xani and Yata would allow tourists to better
communicate with the residents of Zorba than would only learning Xani.” If
learning both languages provides better communication, then learning just
Xani would not be the most that a tourist could do to assist in
communicating with Zorba’s locals.

Answer choice (E): This answer is incorrect because the argument is about
visiting Zorba and communicating with Zorba’s locals. The fact that the two
languages are spoken in other countries is not relevant.

pearrrrrrr · Answer

Premise: Xani and Yata are the only two languages spoken in the country of Zorba.
Premise: with Xani spoken by the majority of Zorba’s residents.
Conclusion: Thus, by learning Xani prior to visiting Zorba, tourists can feel confident that they have done the most that they can to assist in communicating with Zorba’s locals.

DEFENDER ASSUMPTION = need to find premise in answer choice that protects the argument

(D) Learning both Xani and Yata would not allow tourists to better communicate with
the residents of Zorba than would only learning Xani.
>> The argument concludes that “by learning Xani prior to visiting Zorba, tourists can feel they have done the most that they can” 
if learning both Xani and Yata can make tourist feel they have done better than learning Xani alone, the argument will be in doubt. Therefore, we need to eliminate this idea that could weaken the argument which is clearly shown in choice D

Posted from my mobile device

vachas · Answer

Could someone kindly clarify why C is incorrect ?

samarpan.g28 · Answer

The tourists want to make sure that they have done most of them, irrespective of how committed they are to the locals. Therefore option C is incorrect.

ReedArnoldMPREP · Answer

This is a good chance to really practice understanding some fundamentals of GMAT CR. There's a lot more structure to these questions than might first meet the eye.

It will first help to really specify what the GMAT means by 'assumption.' An assumption on the GMAT is some idea that is:

a). not explicitly stated
b). necessary for the argument to stand.

Arguments can have (and usually do) *many* of these necessary assumptions.

So let's take a look at the argument:

After you've read an argument, take a good moment to really specify what the CONCLUSION of the argument is: the (explicitly stated) idea that the argument really is trying to convince you of.

Here that is 'by learning Xani, tourists can feel confident that they have done the most they can to assist communicating with locals.'

It's important to focus like a laser on that conclusion, because it gives you the SCOPE of the argument (that is, it tells you what is RELEVANT to the argument, or not). Here, we are curious about only: "is learning Xani *really* the most tourists can do to assist in communication with the locals? Or is there MORE tourists could do to assist in communicating with the locals?"

That's the key question at hand.

Now, consider some questions that are also related to the situation, but are NOT relevant:
--Should tourists want to assist in communication with the locals?
--Does learning the native language of other tourists destinations assist in communicating with the locals there?
--Will tourists be willing to put in the time it takes to learn a language? 
--Is Zorba a popular tourist destination?

We just want to know whether learning Xani is truly the MOST tourists could do to assist in communicating with the locals.

So why is C wrong?

This is one of those irrelevant questions. Whether or not tourists WANT to effectively communicate does not change which actions would be the most effective in doing so. (I might not WANT to get in good shape, but frequent exercise is most effective way of getting in good shape).

Let's look at right answer D:

Well yes that seems necessary to the argument! To see why let's employ the NEGATION TEST. The negation test works like this: since the assumption is NECESSARY for the argument to hold, NEGATING an assumption would destroy an argument. Only one of the right answers is a necessary assumption, so negating the right answer would ruin the argument.

negating D:

"Learning both Xani and Yata WOULD allow tourists to better communicate with the residents of Zorba than would only learning Xani."

Well if that's true, then learning Xani alone is not the MOST a tourist could do to assist in communicating with the locals, since laerning Yata would, in fact, help them even more.

KarishmaB · Answer

Think of it this way: Conclusion: If you want A, do B. Now is your assumption going to be something related to whether people want A or not? No. It will be related to whether B is the way to get A. Similarly, if you want to strengthen it, you have to support why doing B is a good idea to get A. It is not going to be about whether you want A or not. Here the conclusion: by learning Xani prior to visiting Zorba, tourists can feel confident that they have done the most that they can to assist in communicating with Zorba’s locals. is similar in structure to If tourists learn Xani prior to visiting Zorba, they can feel confident that they have done the most that they can to assist in communicating with Zorba’s locals. Hence our assumption cannot be that most tourists are committed to effectively communicating with the residents of the countries that they visit. We are not assuming that. Our assumption is that learning both languages will not be even better (and hence, tourists can feel confident that they have done the most they can). Check this video that discusses how to handle conditional statements: https://youtu.be/BW8Ijrhjjq8

VerbalBot · Answer

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Xani and Yata are the only two languages spoken in the country of

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