Environmentalist: The increasing cases of cancer amoung our

Question

Environmentalist: The increasing cases of cancer amoung our citizens is the result of hazardous material produced at your plant.

Company Spokespoerson: Our statistics show that rtaes of cancer are high throughout the region in which the plant is situated because local wells that supply drinking water are polluted, not because of the plant 

Which of the following, if true, most seriously weakens the spokeperson's claims ?

A -- The statistics do not differentiate between types of cancer
B -- Nearby communities have not changed the sources of their drinking water
C -- Cancer-causing chemicals used at the plant are discharged into a nearby river and find their way into local produces
D -- The plant both uses and produces chemicals that have been shown to cause cancer
E -- Some of the pollutants cited by the board as contaminating the local wells have been present in the wells for decades

chanatty · Answer

C it is.

A: Not relevant
B: Out of scope
D: does not show how company's chemicals relate to cancer
E: doesn't help anything

C: fills the gap how company's chemicals cause the cancer since they are in the source of drinking water.

taklu · Answer

OA is B

even i didnt understand

oxon · Answer

taklu,
where did you get this one from? The OA is wrong. 
Correct answer has to be C.

rthothad · Answer

My choice was 'E'. 
'C' - I think is out of scope because the spokesperson's statement talks about local wells that supply drinking water and not about local produce.
'B' says the source of drinking water has not changed so it actually strengthens the spokesperson's statement because according to them the water is polluted and if the citizens are still using this water they are bound to be affected.
'E' on the other hand says that the pollutants were always present in the water, so if the citizens were always using this water, it could not account for the increasing cases of cancer.

I am not sure whether my analysis is right or wrong - any thoughts???

saurabhmalpani · Answer

If I am not wrong than this CR is from Kaplan800 and even i was also not able to understand it. Because I did this CR before joining this forum I completely forgot to post about it. But yes this CR is very confusing.

Saurabh Malpani

forumsmba · Answer

This one's tricky.
I didn't pick C for the following reason: we are asked to weaken the spokesperson's claim which is that "the cancer causing chemicals are in the water" - He does not claim that the plant does or does not produce them.

C, I believe, acually strengthens the spokesperson's claim that indeed water does have the cancer causing chemicals.

D (I picked this one first - but I think this is wrong) - since it doesn't say anything about water carrying the chemicals.

B is the only one that talks about neighbours not changing their water source. I would have picked this, if the environmentalist clearly stated that there is no cancer to the neighbours. I guess this must be implied by "citizens"

Praetorian · Answer

Please avoid crack gmat materials.

If you are still at the learning stage in verbal, please dont touch anything other than Official Guide or the LSAT Superprep. You also have several retired ETS paper tests available on the GMAC website. 

After you have done that, you still have hundreds of CR's available from the other disclosed LSAT's. 

Practising the right strategies with poor quality problems will lead us nowhere.

Praetorian

taklu · Answer

Thnx for the suggestion ..

I have stopped using crack gmat... was trying to find a review before i bought it but didnt manage to find a negative review on it

gmat1obsessed · Answer

C is the asnwer 

Explanation - Company spokesperson is contesting that local wells have polluted water which result in cancer....
it is being weakened since chemicals used in company is discharged into river which finds it ways into local produces..so concluding that drinking water is polluted by chemicals discharged by company.

Environmentalist: The increasing cases of cancer amoung our

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