Beverage company representative: The plastic rings that hold six-packs

Question

Beverage company representative: The plastic rings that hold six-packs of beverage cans together pose a threat to wild animals, which often become entangled in the discarded rings and suffocate as a result. Following our lead, all beverage companies will soon use only those rings consisting of a new plastic that disintegrates after only three days’ exposure to sunlight. Once we all complete the switchover from the old to the new plastic rings, therefore, the threat of suffocation that plastic rings pose to wild animals will be eliminated.

Which one of the following, if true, most seriously weakens the representative’s argument?

(A) The switchover to the new plastic rings will take at least two more years to complete.

(B) After the beverage companies have switched over to the new plastic rings, a substantial number of the old plastic rings will persist in most aquatic and woodland environments.

(C) The new plastic rings are slightly less expensive than the old rings.

(D) The new plastic rings rarely disintegrate during shipping of beverage six-packs because most trucks that transport canned beverages protect their cargo from sunlight.

(E) The new plastic rings disintegrate into substances that are harmful to aquatic animals when ingested in substantial quantities by them.

Source: LSAT

KarishmaB · Accepted Answer

All rings will be replaced by new rings that disintegrate within 3 days of exposure to sunlight.

Conclusion: Once we all complete the switchover from the old to the new plastic rings, the threat of suffocation that plastic rings pose to wild animals will be eliminated.

We need to weaken this. We need to say why even after the switchover, the threat of suffocation will not be eliminated.

(A) The switchover to the new plastic rings will take at least two more years to complete.

Doesn't matter how long it will take to switch over. The conclusion that after switchover the threat will be eliminated. That is what we need to weaken.

(B) After the beverage companies have switched over to the new plastic rings, a substantial number of the old plastic rings will persist in most aquatic and woodland environments.

Even after the switchover, the threat will not be eliminated. Why? Because though we will add no new suffocating rings, still many only ones will be present in the animals' ecosystem. Correct.

(C) The new plastic rings are slightly less expensive than the old rings.

Irrelevant.

(D) The new plastic rings rarely disintegrate during shipping of beverage six-packs because most trucks that transport canned beverages protect their cargo from sunlight.

This tells us that when the beverages are getting shipped to customers, the rings do not disintegrate. This is good for the plan otherwise we will not be able to use the new rings. If they disintegrate during shipping, the contents will not be held together and will fall apart (so the 6 beer cans will fall apart during shipping itself). So the rings will not serve their purpose. Such rings cannot be used. 
Hence, it is necessary that the rings not disintegrate during shipping for the plan to work.

Once they are discarded by the customer after use (say after they buy the pack remove all beer cans from it and throw the ring in the bin), they will disintegrate if exposed to sunlight for 3 days. Waste takes quite a while to reach the wild animals' ecosystem. Hence, most of these rings will disintegrate before they even reach the wild. 
 sonalchhajed2019

(E) The new plastic rings disintegrate into substances that are harmful to aquatic animals when ingested in substantial quantities by them.

Irrelevant. The conclusion says that the threat of suffocation will be eliminated. If there are other threats, that is out of scope for us.

Answer (B)

Bunuel · Answer

OFFICIAL EXPLANATION

The conclusion of this argument is the final sentence, which contains the conclusion indicator “therefore,” and the conclusion contains a qualification that the threat of suffocation will be eliminated after the switchover is complete. The premises supporting this conclusion are that the new plastic rings will be used by all companies and that the rings disintegrate after three days’ exposure to sunlight. Personalize this argument and ask yourself—are there any holes in this argument? Yes, there are several. The most obvious is, “What if an animal becomes entangled in the new rings before they can disintegrate?” In this question, however, that avenue of attack is not used (this was a two-question stimuli and that idea was used in the other question) but there is no way to know this prior to attempting the question.

Answer choice (A): This answer does not hurt the argument because the author qualified the conclusion to account for the date of the switchover, thereby inoculating against this avenue of attack. From a personalizing standpoint, imagine what would happen if you raised this issue to the beverage company representative—he or she would simply say, “Yes, that may be the case, but I noted in my conclusion that the program would be effective once the switchover is complete.” This is an attractive answer because it raises a point that would be a difficult public relations issue to address. Regardless, this does not hurt the argument given by the beverage company representative, and that is the task at hand.

Answer choice (B): This is the correct answer.  Most people select answer choice (E), but as you will see, (E) is incorrect. This answer undermines the representative’s conclusion by showing that even after the switchover is complete, the threat to animals from plastic rings will persist. Note the carefully worded nature of the conclusion—the representative does not say the threat from new plastic rings will be eliminated, but rather the threat from plastic rings, which includes both old and new rings.

Answer choice (C): This out-of-scope answer addresses an issue that is irrelevant to the representative’s argument.

Answer choice (D): While this is nice information from a customer service standpoint (you do not want your six-pack of beer falling apart as you walk out of the store), this answer does not affect the conclusion because it does not address the threat 
of suffocation to animals.

Answer choice (E): This is the most commonly chosen answer, and it is a perfect example of a Shell Game. In this case, the answer preys upon test takers who fail to heed the advice: “Read closely and know precisely what the author said. Do not generalize!” Many test takers read the conclusion and think, “So when they start using these new rings, it will make things better for the animals.” When these test takers get to answer choice (E), the answer looks extremely attractive because it indicates that the implementation of the new rings will also have a harmful effect. With this thinking in mind, many test takers select answer choice (E) thinking it undermines the conclusion and they are certain they have nailed the question. However, the conclusion is specifically about suffocation, and answer choice (E) does not address suffocation. Instead, answer choice (E) is a shell game that attacks a conclusion that is similar but different than the actual conclusion. Remember, one of the rules for weakening arguments is to focus on the conclusion, and knowing the details of the conclusion is part of that focus. Finally, the placement of answer choice (E) is no accident.

Most students do not immediately identify answer choice (B) as the correct answer, and even those that keep it as a Contender often feel it could be stronger. Then, just when things are starting to look bleak, answer choice (E) pops up sounding fairly reasonable. Most people breathe a sigh of relief and select the answer without carefully examining the contents. Never choose answer choice (E) just because the first four answers are not overly attractive! Always make a thorough analysis of every answer choice and remember that the test makers know that people get nervous if none of the first four answer choices jump out at them. Do not let the test takers draw you into a trap! Answer choice (E) is only attractive if you make a mistakenly broad interpretation of the conclusion. Answer choice (E) is a great place for the test makers to place an attractive wrong answer because (E) is the last answer that a student will read, and the contents of (E) “reverberate” in the test taker’s mind and begin to sound reasonable. In that same vein, answer choice (A) is a great place to put the correct answer if the stimulus is exceedingly difficult to understand or if the question stem is extremely unusual. Why? Because most test takers use the first answer choice in a difficult problem to get a handle on what they are reading and the type of answers they will see. If a problem is tough, it can be difficult to immediately identify answer choice (A) as correct. Then, by the time they have read all five answers, they are prone to have forgotten the details of the first answer choice.

jatinrai · Answer

E looks very tempting, but a closer look clarifies that 'aquatic animals' are out of scope. There is no mention of bags flowing into water bodies. The argument was to protect wild animals & not fishes and ofcourse we cant call fishes as wild animals.

Given less than 2 minutes to solve this question, I'd have marked E. Even if I had marked B it'd have been with a lot of guilt & skepticism. A real tricky question.

spriya · Answer

Even B talks about aquatic animals !!! again E talks about threat due to ingestion of toxic elements !!may be this makes E a weaker option 
and B scores here saying even though the old to new switch is taken place but still old plastic still prevails !!!
hence the threat cannot be obviated or eliminated

bigtreezl · Answer

its not E because the argument says new plastic rings will prevent suffocation, not death by ingestion

B is the answer

sonalchhajed2019 · Answer

VeritasKarishma  
 GMATNinja

Please help with answer option D.

Please help me with this answer choice. I marked this as the correct answer. And the reason I did that was "if the plastic rings do not disintegrate during transit, they will disintegrate after 3 days of exposure to sunlight. And what if during these 3 days the animal becomes entangled and is suffocated. How do we rule out this possibility? Nowhere are we given the information about when and where are the plastic rings exposed to sunlight.

GMATNinja · Answer

As you point out, before the new plastic rings disintegrate, they could in theory suffocate a wild animal. So you  could  argue that this fact is flaw in the argument. But our goal isn't to find a flaw in the argument. Our goal is simply to find the answer choice that  most seriously weakens  the argument.

The problem with answer choice (D) is that it doesn't  weaken the argument.  We already know that rings dissolve after three days' exposure to sunlight, so presumably they won't dissolve if they are not exposed to sunlight. Thus, answer choice (D) doesn't add any new information. It doesn't  rule out  the possibility that an animal will be suffocated before the plastic rings dissolve, but that doesn't mean it weakens the argument.

Let's now take a look at (B):

Keep in mind the conclusion states that once the switchover to the new plastic rings is complete, "the threat of suffocation that plastic rings pose to wild animals will be eliminated." But if there are "substantial numbers of old plastic rings in most aquatic and woodland environments," these old plastic rings could still suffocate wild animals.

Since this weakens the argument, (B) is correct.

I hope that helps!

CrackverbalGMAT · Answer

Beverage company representative: The plastic rings that hold six-packs of beverage cans together pose a threat to wild animals, which often become entangled in the discarded rings and suffocate as a result. Following our lead, all beverage companies will soon use only those rings consisting of a new plastic that disintegrates after only three days’ exposure to sunlight. Once we all complete the switchover from the old to the new plastic rings, therefore, the threat of suffocation that plastic rings pose to wild animals will be eliminated.

Which one of the following, if true, most seriously weakens the representative’s argument?

Question type:  Weaken the argument

Conclusion:  After the switchover, the threat of suffocation to wild animals will be eliminated

Task at hand:  Find an option that shows that the threat of suffocation will not necessarily be eliminated

A. The switchover to the new plastic rings will take at least two more years to complete.  How much time the switchover will take will not show that the threat of suffocation will not necessarily be eliminated.

B. After the beverage companies have switched over to the new plastic rings, a substantial number of the old plastic rings will persist in most aquatic and woodland environments.   This options shows that even after the switchover the threat will still probably exist because a substantial number of the old plastic rings will persist in the environment.

C. The new plastic rings are slightly less expensive than the old rings.  How much the new rings will cost in comparison to the old rings will not show that the threat of suffocation will not necessarily be eliminated.

D. The new plastic rings rarely disintegrate during shipping of beverage six-packs because most trucks that transport canned beverages protect their cargo from sunlight.  The main focus is that these rings will disintegrate when exposed to sunlight after the rings have been eliminated. That these will not disintegrate while in transit is a good thing, but it will not show that the threat of suffocation will not necessarily be eliminated.

E. The new plastic rings disintegrate into substances that are harmful to aquatic animals when ingested in substantial quantities by them.  Trick option alert! The focus of the conclusion is suffocation due to entanglement. This option shows that the animals may be harmed because they ingest these rings.

- Nitha Jay

waytowharton · Answer

ExpertsGlobal5  
 KarishmaB   DmitryFarber   AjiteshArun   GMATNinja 
 GMATNinjaTwo 
 GMATWhizteam

Once we all complete the switchover from the old to the new plastic rings, therefore, the threat of suffocation that plastic rings pose to wild animals will be eliminated.

Doubt - In the last sentence, Is 'therefore' redundant? The sentence begins with dependent clause marker - ONCE and after DC we have an IC beginning with IC marker THEREFORE. 
Questions - 
1. Is this kind of sentence construction correct where we have both DC and IC marker? 
2. Can you also give some other example? 
3. Would the sentence be correct if we did not have therefore in sentence? If yes, will the meaning change?

Thanks in advance!

GMATNinja · Answer

This sentence is grammatically fine! And the meaning is not redundant -- in this context, "once" means "after." So in saying "Once we all complete the switchover from the old to the new plastic rings," the author is constraining his/her conclusion to the time after beverage companies have completed the switch.

Separately, "therefore" serves to highlight the fact that the last sentence is the author's conclusion (and if you'd like more on the various grammatical uses "therefore," check out the last bit of  this article ).

Finally: sure, the sentence would be fine without the word "therefore," but on CR your job is not to pick apart the author's grammar or style. Leave that kind of thing for SC.
 
I hope that helps a bit!

Harsh020 · Answer

I mean sharks, whales, octopuses live in the wild (and independently). So they look pretty wild to me. Hence, E kinda works..

AbhishekP220108 · Answer

Hi  Harsh020  let me try to help, since we are only comcerned about wild animals and option E talks about aquatic hence this is an irrelevant info. We cannot assume that they are wild, wild here clearly mean those who reside on land

Hope this helps

Beverage company representative: The plastic rings that hold six-packs

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