My neighbor's dogs bark and howl every time their owner lets them outs

Question

My neighbor's dogs bark and howl every time their owner lets them outside. My CPA told me that dogs tend to bark and howl when they see birds resting in the top branches of their favorite trees. I personally believe they bark and howl because they enjoy disrupting my meditations.

Which of the following can be inferred from the preceding passage?

Which of the following can be inferred from the preceding passage?

A. The dogs must be abused by their owners.
B. The dogs' owners do not make efforts to stop the dogs from barking and howling.
C. There are many pedestrians who walk by this neighbor's house, and the dogs are starving for attention.
D. The dogs frequently see birds in the tops of their favorite trees.
E. The dogs will bark and howl at 3 a.m. if they are outside at that time.

kidchaos · Accepted Answer

My neighbor's dogs bark and howl every time their owner lets them outside. My CPA told me that dogs tend to bark and howl when they see birds resting in the top branches of their favorite trees. I personally believe they bark and howl because they enjoy disrupting my meditations.

Which of the following conclusions can be properly drawn from the preceding passage?

A. The dogs must be abused by their owners.
B. The dogs' owners do not make efforts to stop the dogs from barking and howling.
C. There are many pedestrians who walk by this neighbor's house, and the dogs are starving for attention.
D. The dogs frequently see birds in the tops of their favorite trees.
E. The dogs will bark and howl at 3 a.m. if they are outside at that time.

Source: https://www.admissionconsultants.com

OFFICIAL EXPLANATION:

Answer choice E can be easily, directly, and correctly inferred from the statement that the dogs bark and howl every time their owner lets them outside. The rest of this passage is "decoy" material. You may have noticed 2 other techniques employed by the GMAT writers in this question. The first trick is to have an unqualified authority comment on a controversy. In this case, we have no reason to believe a CPA would be an expert on canine behavior. Since we have no reason to believe the CPA's analysis is correct, there is no support for choice D. The second trick is to present extreme or emotionally loaded statements. Answer choice A is too extreme to be a correct answer choice on the GMAT.

LogicGuru1 · Answer

The Answer is E 
 Explaination :-
This is Main Point /Conclusion question. No outside or new information can be incorporated to arrive at the answer. The answer must be direct or indirect rephrasing of the Conclusion of the statement. This conclusion should be present or stated directly in the question stem
Now lets analyse the question and break it into Premise and Conclusion.
 
 Premise 1) CPA (certified Public accountant) says dog bark when they see birds. (WEAK PREMISE :- CPA is not a qualified authority to comment on dogs behaviour) 
 Premise 2) Author thinks dog bark whenever the author is meditating (author himself accepts that he "suspect or believes" that dog bark to disturb his meditation) 
NOW THERE IS NO DEFINITE CONCLUSION HERE BUT THERE IS SOME SORT OF SUB-CONLUSION. THIS SUBCONCLUSION CAN BE REPHRASED AS :-
 Conclusion ) No matter what the reason is Dog bark whenever they are outside
THE POINT TO NOTE IS THAT FOR BARKING TO HAPPEN THE DOGS MUST BE OUTSIDE. THIS IS IRRESPECTIVE OF THE FACT THAT WHETHER THE DOG BARK AFTER SEEING BIRD OR THE DOG BARK KNOWINGLY TO DISTURB THE AUTHORS MEDITATION. WE KNOW FOR SURE THE DOG BARK WHENEVER IT IS OUTSIDE.

Now the correct answer choice say exactly the same thing in a different manner.

My neighbor's dogs bark and howl every time their owner lets them outside. My CPA told me that dogs tend to bark and howl when they see birds resting in the top branches of their favorite trees. I personally believe they bark and howl because they enjoy disrupting my meditations.
Which of the following conclusions can be properly drawn from the preceding passage?

A. The dogs must be abused by their owners.
 wrong :- No new info can be used. 
 B. The dogs' owners do not make efforts to stop the dogs from barking and howling.
 wrong:- no new info can be used. This is at best a weak assumption
 
C. There are many pedestrians who walk by this neighbor's house, and the dogs are starving for attention.
 wrong:- Again a weak assumption. Also no new info can be used.
 
D. The dogs frequently see birds in the tops of their favorite trees.
 Wrong :- This is the choice that many people will pick. But remember  this is a premise stated by the CPA.  This is not a conclusion.  The right answer will be a rephrasing of the CONCLUSION. 
  
E. The dogs will bark and howl at 3 a.m. if they are outside at that time.
 Right:- This is the correct answer. Remember our conclusion :- No matter whether the dog bark when he sees the birds or whether the dog barks when the author is meditating, the only sure and certain thing we know is that dog barks when he is outside. This is exactly what OPTION E states.

hanumayamma · Answer

1. The dogs must be abused by their owners.  
2. The dogs' owners do not care how they are viewed by their neighbors.  
3. There are many pedestrians who walk by this neighbor's house, and the dogs are starving for attention.  
4. The dogs enjoy being outside.  
5. The dogs will bark and howl at 3 a.m. if they are outside at that time

Answer: 5

bsd_lover · Answer

Straight E - thats the only thing that can be inferred from the passage.

arundas · Answer

Got this one right."every time their owner lets them outside." The phrase that holds the pointer to the answer.

hdwnkr · Answer

keyword: Outside

The only other option that may fit in is not stated : The neighbor meditates under the dogs' favorite tree on which there is a tiny bird sanctuary at all times.

hence, E

manhasnoname · Answer

Why did the author talk about meditation? Doesn't add anything to the conclusion

chesstitans · Answer

conclusion questions are very rare, so test takers should not worry about it. Whereas, inference questions are more important and common. 
99% of time, conclusion questions appear only in fill-in-blank questions.

arvind910619 · Answer

The question not so Gmat like , however it does test us if we are paying attention to what we are reading .

umabharatigudipalli · Answer

Struggled between D and E. Finally picked E.

1. The dogs must be abused by their owners.  no info is given in the passage about this. 
2. The dogs' owners do not care how they are viewed by their neighbors.  OOS 
3. There are many pedestrians who walk by this neighbor's house, and the dogs are starving for attention.  irrelevant 
4. The dogs enjoy being outside.  This is a tempting answer. By reading the passage, it might imply this but be careful, in inference questions, the choice must be true. This can/can not be true. So incorrect. 
5. The dogs will bark and howl at 3 a.m. if they are outside at that time. Yes, this is always true ."My neighbor's dogs bark and howl every time their owner lets them outside." So be it 3 am or 10 pm, dogs will bark if they are let outside anytime.

DharLog · Answer

My neighbor's dogs bark and howl every time their owner lets them outside. My CPA told me that dogs tend to bark and howl when they see birds resting in the top branches of their favorite trees. I personally believe they bark and howl because they enjoy disrupting my meditations.

Which of the following can be inferred from the preceding passage?

Which of the following can be inferred from the preceding passage?
1. The dogs must be abused by their owners.
 Something outside the passage

2. The dogs' owners do not care how they are viewed by their neighbors.
 We do not know that

3. There are many pedestrians who walk by this neighbor's house, and the dogs are starving for attention.
 Maybe, but it can not be inferred.

4. The dogs enjoy being outside.
 We know it for sure (usually), but it can not ve inferred

5. The dogs will bark and howl at 3 a.m. if they are outside at that time
 100%! 
 dogs bark and howl every time their owner lets them outside

HavishSingh · Answer

please tell me why option d is not correct..........

AndrewN · Answer

Hello,  HavishSingh . This is a strangely phrased passage, and I doubt it would appear on the GMAT™ as such, but the correct answer is the only one supported by the passage. In an effort to assist you and the larger community, I will offer a full analysis.

The passage is straightforward, delivering information clearly, line by line.

The  neighbor's dogs bark and howl every time  they are outside (line one)   The CPA mentioned a tendency in dogs that can cause barking and howling (line two)   The first-person speaker shares a personal belief: the dogs take pleasure in  disrupting my meditations  (line three)

The belief at the end seems wayward, to say the least—how could dogs possibly know when the speaker was meditating? Still, we have to take the information in the passage at face value. What do the answer choices have in store for us?

This could be true, but at the same time, the owners could be letting the dogs outside in an act of humaneness. Perhaps the dogs need to go to the bathroom or the owners appreciate their need to run around outside. This  must  is too strong, not to mention that any abuse directed at the dogs is purely speculative.

I could see people falling for this answer choice through association. If a problem with noise persists, it must be because the owners of the dogs are negligent. However, just as children can be rowdy even when parents seek to keep them well behaved, dogs might bark and howl, even if their owners do make efforts to curb their barking and howling. (The owners might think that muzzling the animals would be inhumane, for all we know.)

First, we cannot point to anything in the passage to inform our decision on just how many  pedestrians  may be passing by, and second, we are in no position to comment on what the dogs may be feeling, in terms of wanting  attention . (Also, I am pretty sure the correct way of expressing the notion is to say that the dogs  are starved  for attention, not  are starving .)

The CPA might agree, but such speculation is not supported as a logical inference from the information found in the passage as a whole. How do we know how  frequently  the dogs are outside making noise?

This is exactly right. The first line of the passage states that the dogs  bark and howl every time their owner lets them outside , so whether it is noon or 3 a.m., we can reasonably infer that if the dogs are outside, they will be barking and howling.

Perhaps the question makes more sense now. Good luck with your studies.

- Andrew

VerbalBot · Answer

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My neighbor's dogs bark and howl every time their owner lets them outs

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My neighbor's dogs bark and howl every time their owner lets them outs

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