In a certain wildlife park,

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In a certain wildlife park,

by ska7945 » Wed Aug 20, 2008 12:13 am
In a certain wildlife park, park rangers are able to track the movements of many rhinoceroses because those animals wear radio collars. When, as often happens, a collar slips off, it is put back on. Putting a collar on a rhinoceros involves immobilizing the animal by shooting it with a tranquilizer dart. Female rhinoceroses that have been frequently recollared have significantly lower fertility rates than uncollared females. Probably, therefore, some substance in the tranquilizer inhibits fertility.
Which of the following is an assumption on which the argument depends?

A. The dose of tranquilizer delivered by a tranquilizer dart is large enough to give the rangers putting collars on rhinoceroses a generous margin of safety.
B. The fertility rate of uncollared female rhinoceroses in the park has been increasing in the past few decades.
C. Any stress that female rhinoceroses may suffer as a result of being immobilized and handled has little or no negative effect on their fertility.
D. The male rhinoceroses in the wildlife park do net lose their collars as often as the park’s female rhinoceroses do.
E. The tranquilizer used in immobilizing rhinoceroses is the same as the tranquilizer used in working with other large mammals.

oa A
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by raunekk » Wed Aug 20, 2008 12:49 am
imo:C

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Re: In a certain wildlife park,

by kiranlegend » Wed Aug 20, 2008 12:51 am
ska7945 wrote:In a certain wildlife park, park rangers are able to track the movements of many rhinoceroses because those animals wear radio collars. When, as often happens, a collar slips off, it is put back on. Putting a collar on a rhinoceros involves immobilizing the animal by shooting it with a tranquilizer dart. Female rhinoceroses that have been frequently recollared have significantly lower fertility rates than uncollared females. Probably, therefore, some substance in the tranquilizer inhibits fertility.
Which of the following is an assumption on which the argument depends?

A. The dose of tranquilizer delivered by a tranquilizer dart is large enough to give the rangers putting collars on rhinoceroses a generous margin of safety.
B. The fertility rate of uncollared female rhinoceroses in the park has been increasing in the past few decades.
C. Any stress that female rhinoceroses may suffer as a result of being immobilized and handled has little or no negative effect on their fertility.
D. The male rhinoceroses in the wildlife park do net lose their collars as often as the park’s female rhinoceroses do.
E. The tranquilizer used in immobilizing rhinoceroses is the same as the tranquilizer used in working with other large mammals.

oa A
IMO C.. C is ruling out another possibility that might inhibit female rhinoceroses fertility..

can you check the OA again, pls?

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by youcan » Wed Aug 20, 2008 5:25 am
I feel A is the best option .. because option C clearly says no effect on fertility.

Also the relationship between tranquillizer and fertility is mentioned only A &C

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by niraj_a » Wed Aug 20, 2008 5:32 am
IMO C too, A doesn't tell us squat.

Is this one of those 1000 set questions which has a wrong OA?

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by codesnooker » Wed Aug 20, 2008 5:39 am
youcan wrote:I feel A is the best option .. because option C clearly says no effect on fertility.

Also the relationship between tranquillizer and fertility is mentioned only A &C
Yes option (C) clearly says that stress doesn't responsible for decreasing fertility, hence only one option is left of their decreasing fertility that is tranquilizer as there is no other stated assumption.

(A) shows only relationship between tranquilizer and rhino. It doesn't show any relationship between tranquilizer and the decreasing rhino's fertility that is actually asked in the question.

Hence IMO: (C).

What is the source of the question?

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by raunekk » Thu Aug 21, 2008 10:40 pm
@ska7945

may i know the source pls...

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by Suyog » Fri Aug 22, 2008 11:52 am
how can it be C??

stem says..

Putting a collar on a rhinoceros involves immobilizing the animal by shooting it with a tranquilizer dart. Female rhinoceroses that have been frequently recollared have significantly lower fertility rates than uncollared females..

and C says...
as a result of being immobilized and handled has little or no negative effect on their fertility...

where as stem says..

park rangers are able to track the movements of many rhinoceroses because those animals wear radio collars. When, as often happens, a collar slips off, it is put back on

and A says...

a tranquilizer dart is large enough to give the rangers putting collars on rhinoceroses a generous margin of safety

I think it shud be A??

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by parallel_chase » Fri Aug 22, 2008 5:23 pm
I think its C.

The conclusion here is "therefore, some substance in the tranquilizer inhibits fertility."

Therefore answer should be C because it clearly states that stress caused has little or no negative effect on their fertility.

This assumption supports author's conclusion.

Let me know if you think otherwise.

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by lunarpower » Sun Oct 04, 2009 10:40 am
the best way to "justify" the oa here is to eliminate the other answers. this is more straightforward than on many other problems, because ALL of the wrong answers are VERY much outside the argument's scope.

(a) irrelevant, as the numbers of collared vs. uncollared rhinos are irrelevant to fertility rates (presumably measured in babies per rhino, or # of copulations required per pregnancy, or some other figure that doesn't have anything to do with the total population size).

(b) irrelevant; the argument deals only with rhinos.

(d) irrelevant; the argument deals only with FEMALE rhinos.

(e) irrelevant; the purpose of the collar doesn't affect the fertility issue. moreover, other means of tracking the rhinos lie outside the scope of the argument.

--

that leaves (c).

the reason (c) matters is because the study purports to cover the differences between rhinos that have been hit with tranquilizer darts (let's call them "tranks") and those that haven't. however, the study DOESN'T directly split the rhinos into "trank" and "non-trank" groups; it splits them into "frequently recollared" and "not frequently recollared" groups.
the argument therefore depends on the assumption that "frequently recollared" is an adequate proxy for "been hit by tranks" and that "not frequently recollared" is an adequate proxy for "not been hit by tranks".
choice (c) is very much relevant to this assumption, because that association falls apart if the rhinos are getting tranked for lots of other reasons in addition to the collar issue.

but again, the wrong answers are easy pickings here, so you probably don't even need to think this much.

--

the real question is whether the rhinos can pop their collars.
;)
Ron has been teaching various standardized tests for 20 years.

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by bonetlobo » Fri Mar 27, 2015 5:29 am
lunarpower wrote: (b) irrelevant; the argument deals only with rhinos.
Hello Ron, this is what B is:

The fertility rate of uncollared female rhinoceroses in the park has been increasing in the past few decades

So, can you suggest what you mean with B being irrelevant and in deals only with rhinos.

Thanks in advance.

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by kutlee » Sun Mar 29, 2015 7:08 pm
Option B talks only about increase in fertility rates. It does not talk about any effect of the dart or any other effect that can reduce the fertility rate. It looks slightly out of scope.

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by Alchemist14 » Thu Oct 13, 2016 12:20 am
lunarpower wrote:the best way to "justify" the oa here is to eliminate the other answers. this is more straightforward than on many other problems, because ALL of the wrong answers are VERY much outside the argument's scope.

(a) irrelevant, as the numbers of collared vs. uncollared rhinos are irrelevant to fertility rates (presumably measured in babies per rhino, or # of copulations required per pregnancy, or some other figure that doesn't have anything to do with the total population size).

(b) irrelevant; the argument deals only with rhinos.

(d) irrelevant; the argument deals only with FEMALE rhinos.

(e) irrelevant; the purpose of the collar doesn't affect the fertility issue. moreover, other means of tracking the rhinos lie outside the scope of the argument.

--

that leaves (c).
Ron thanks for the great explanation.

Here is an analogy that I made,

Participants in Control Group A consumed an artificial sugar. After a few hours they exhibited lower congnitive abilities. GMAT will say, artificial sugar leads to lower cognitive abilities.

Now to weaken , you should show that artificial sugars did not contribute to lower cognitive abilities. - There is no causation.

Participants in Control Group B consumed the same artificial sugar. However they did not exhibit lower cognitive ability.

So you cannot conclusively say that artificial sugars contribute to lower cognitive ability, right?

This is similar to what happens in C, right?. The other rhinos are often tranqualized but they dont exhibit lower fertility rates. So we cannot conclusively say that a substance in the tranqualizer is agent that causes lower fertility rates.

Is my analogy correct?
Please let me know whether my reasoning is correct.

Thanks in advance,
Al