Sharks have a higher ratio of cartilage mass to body mass than any oth

Question

Sharks have a higher ratio of cartilage mass to body mass than any other organism. They also have a greater resistance to cancer than any other organism. Shark cartilage contains a substance that inhibits tumor growth by stopping the development of a new blood network. In the past 20 years, none of the responses among terminal cancer patients to various therapeutic measures has been more positive than the response among those who consumed shark cartilage.

If the claims made above are true, then each of the following could be true except:

A. No organism resists cancer better than sharks do, but some resist cancer as well as sharks.

B. The organism most susceptible to cancer has a higher percentage of cartilage than some organisms that are less susceptible to cancer.

C. The substance in shark cartilage that inhibits tumor growth is found in most organisms.

D. In the pas 20 years many terminal cancer patients have improved dramatically following many sorts of therapy.

E. Some organisms have immune systems more efficient than a shark's immune system.

Bunuel · Accepted Answer

OFFICIAL EXPLANATION

As with most Cannot Be True questions, the stimulus does not contain an argument. Instead, a fact pattern is presented and you are tested on your knowledge of those facts. Let’s review each statement, sentence-by-sentence, keeping in mind that in Cannot questions you accept the statements in the stimulus as true:

Statement: Sharks have a higher ratio of cartilage mass to body mass than any other organism. This is a very broad, global statement indicating that no other organism has a higher ratio of cartilage mass to body mass than sharks.

Statement: They   also have a greater resistance to cancer than any other organism. his is another very broad, global statement indicating that no other organism has a greater resistance to cancer than sharks.

Statement: Shark cartilage contains a substance that inhibits tumor growth by stopping the development of a new blood network. This statement is narrower, and focuses only on shark cartilage. Since no information is given about the cartilage of other organisms, it is possible that other organisms contain the tumor-inhibiting substance mentioned in this statement.

Statement: In the past 20 years, none of the responses among terminal cancer patients to various therapeutic measures has been more positive than the response among those who consumed shark cartilage. This statement is also narrower than the first two, but broader than the last statement. While it is specific in stating that no therapeutic measures have received more positive response than shark cartilage, the statement is limited to the past 20 years and to terminal cancer patients. Note also that just because shark cartilage has received a more positive response than any other therapy does not mean that other therapies were unsuccessful—they could have worked very well but not quite as well as shark cartilage. Of the four statements above, the first two are global and can never be violated. The last two are possible sources of wrong answers as they are specific enough to eliminate certain statements, but open enough to allow for a variety of others. The makers of the test love to play with these “edges,” and you should make sure that the answer you select directly violates a statement in the stimulus.

Answer choice (A): This is the correct answer. The answer violates the second sentence of the stimulus, where the author indicates that sharks have a “greater resistance to cancer than any other organism.” This statement means that no other organisms matches or exceeds the cancer resistance of a shark.

Answer choice (B): This answer focuses on the susceptibility of an organism to cancer. Other than stating that sharks are the least susceptible to cancer (greatest resistance = least susceptibility), we know nothing about cancer susceptibility of any other organism. Hence, this answer is possibly true and therefore incorrect.

Answer choice (C): The third statement in the stimulus notes that shark cartilage contains the inhibiting substance. There is no mention that other organisms do not have the substance or that the substance is the primary reason that sharks are cancer resistant. Thus, this answer choice could be true and is incorrect.

Answer choice (D): From the discussion of the fourth statement you know this answer choice could be true. Accordingly, it is incorrect.

Answer choice (E): The stimulus addresses sharks and cancer resistance. Although cancer resistance would logically have some connection to the immune system, cancer resistance is only one aspect of the immune system and therefore other organisms could have an immune system that is overall more efficient than the shark’s immune system. Consequently, this answer choice is possibly true and therefore incorrect.

vshaunak@gmail.com · Answer

It should be 'B'

'B' can't be true as the author has already said that sharks that have higher cartilage mass than any other mechanism, are more resistant to cancer.

ham1231 · Answer

OA is not B, guys. :oops:

OA is A. At claims, it is clearly mentoined that Sharks have a greater resistance to cancer than any other organism. In A, the part of 'but some~as sharks' cannot be true. Since the question is 'could not be true except ', answer is A. But why B could be true? :madd

Still don't know.

EliLTG · Answer

Hey folks,

Looks like this is a tough one!

Let's look at we know: Sharks have the highest ratio of mass to cartilage of any organism; they also have the highest resistance to cancer of any organism.

That's one sample point. It's an interesting coincidence, but we don't have enough evidence to determine if these are actually correlated, let alone if there is a causal factor here! Anything could be true about organisms with less cartilage and more cancer susceptibility; nothing in the prompt suggests that an organism with more cartilage must always have more cancer resistance than an organism with less. Thus, (B) could certainly be true.

On the other hand, we know from the prompt that the amount of cartilage in sharks is "higher...than any other organism." This directly contradicts option (A), which cannot be true--and is therefore the correct answer.

Hope this helps!

ManishKM1 · Answer

Request your kind help  GMATNinja   mikemcgarry .

Regards
Manish

MagooshExpert · Answer

Hi ManishKM1 ! I can jump in for Mike here!

Answer (A) fits best here. (A) says that some organisms resist cancer as well as sharks do. This directly contradicts the argument's statement that sharks "have a greater resistance to cancer than any other organism." So we can safely say that (A) cannot be true if this argument is correct

(B), on the other hand, could just be a coincidence, or irrelevant. The argument here is telling us that shark cartilage specifically helps organisms resist cancer. That doesn't mean that all cartilage necessarily will help an organism resist cancer. There's something specific to shark cartilage that's beneficial -- the particular substance which stops the development of a new tumor blood network. We don't know if all cartilage has this substance, or just shark cartilage. So the cartilage that another organism has might not have the same beneficial properties as shark cartilage does, which means the amount of cartilage they have wouldn't necessarily have anything to do with how susceptible they are to cancer. Does that make sense? Hope that helps!

-Carolyn

TaN1213 · Answer

Hi,

I am interpreting  some organisms resist cancer as well as sharks do  as - some organisms as well as sharks resist cancer.
If this understanding is correct, I fail to understand how these two highlighted statements contradict each other. If sharks have greater resistance than any other organisms, that does not mean other organisms can not have resistance at all.So A is in line with the statement given in the argument.

mikemcgarry , please let me know whether my reasoning is flawed.
Thank you.

MagooshExpert · Answer

Hi TaN1213 , Ah, I understand what you mean

Option A states: A) No organism resists cancer better than sharks do, but some resist cancer as well as sharks. Now, it is incorrect to interpret this to mean that "some organisms, as well as sharks, resist cancer". If that were the case, then this sentence would be an example of incorrect parallelism , in addition to just bad wording. Here, we have a comparison, which means we must have parallel structure. We are only allowed to omit words in parallel if the meaning is clear (that is, if certain words would be repeated). In this case, the words that are omitted are "resist cancer": "Some resist cancer as well as sharks resist cancer." Since the "resist cancer" part is repeated, we can omit it, leaving us with just "some resist cancer as well as sharks". For more on this, see this article: Dropping Common Words in Parallel on the GMAT If "as well as sharks" were meant to be the subject (as in "some organisms, as well as sharks, resist cancer"), then it would have to appear in exactly that order -- with "as well as sharks" right next to "some". We can't just add additional subjects, or subject modifiers, to the end of a sentence. For example, we can't say: "Apples are fruits as well as oranges." This is a grammatically incorrect sentence. We need to say: "Apples, as well as oranges, are fruits". If the phrase starting with "as well as" is modifying the subject (and is therefore acting as part of the subject), it needs to come right next to it. Modifiers can't appear after the verb, at the end of the sentence. So, we can definitively say that "some resist cancer as well as sharks" does NOT mean "some, as well as sharks, resist cancer". Instead, it means that some organisms resist cancer as well as sharks resist cancer. And since that is a clear contradiction of the passage, it fits as an answer. Does that help clear things up? If not, let me know!

-Carolyn

Naman_Agrawal · Answer

If this were a SC question, I would have straight away rejected option "A" for wrong use of comparison.

Can someone explain what's the meaning of that weird sentence ?

tagging the COC (Champion of champions)  Bunuel  as I don't know many names here

MBAB123 · Answer

Hey it's basically saying even though no organism can resist cancer better than sharks do, some organisms do resist cancer just as much as sharks do. Basically cancer resisting ability of some organisms is  equal to  that of sharks, but no organism has a cancer resisting ability  more than  that of sharks.

Hope this clarifies the meaning of "A".

Naman_Agrawal · Answer

Makes sense, thanks

Kratosgmat · Answer

A Clue : They also have a  greater resistance  to cancer than any other organism.

VerbalBot · Answer

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Sharks have a higher ratio of cartilage mass to body mass than any oth

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Sharks have a higher ratio of cartilage mass to body mass than any oth

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