air pollution

IMO A (most is the keyword)

hey this one was posted earlier..can someone apply the denial test on this and post the OA..
Thanks in advance

In the years since the city of London imposed strict air-pollution regulations on local industry, the number of bird species seen in and around London has increased dramatically. Similar air-pollution rules should be imposed in other major cities.
Each of the following is an assumption made in the argument above EXCEPT:
(A) In most major cities, air-pollution problems are caused almost entirely by local industry. --suspicious one(most major cities),but since the argument targets only the local industry,this looks fine

(B) Air-pollution regulations on industry have a significant impact on the quality of the air. --regulations should be impacting the air quality as more birds are visible ,as per the first sentence

(C) The air-pollution problems of other major cities are basically similar to those once suffered by London.-- hence the last sentence

(D) An increase in the number of bird species in and around a city is desirable. - hence the 'should' in the last sentence

(E) The increased sightings of bird species in and around London reflect an actual increase in the number of species in the area. - we cant relate increase in bird sightings to increase in bird number,hence this can not be the assumption

This link has an instructor's advice on this question

https://www.beatthegmat.com/cant-underst ... 13362.html

crazy4gmat wrote:In the years since the city of London imposed strict air-pollution regulations on local industry, the number of bird species seen in and around London has increased dramatically. Similar air-pollution rules should be imposed in other major cities.
Each of the following is an assumption made in the argument above EXCEPT:
(A) In most major cities, air-pollution problems are caused almost entirely by local industry.
(B) Air-pollution regulations on industry have a significant impact on the quality of the air.
(C) The air-pollution problems of other major cities are basically similar to those once suffered by London.
(D) An increase in the number of bird species in and around a city is desirable.
(E) The increased sightings of bird species in and around London reflect an actual increase in the number of species in the area.

If you look at the link provided, Ian does an excellent job summarizing this type of question. However, I disagree with Ian's conclusion about this specific question.

An assumption is something that MUST be true for the argument to make sense. One very common wrong answer type to assumption questions are answers that are too extreme - they go further than necessary.

Choice (A) clearly falls into the extreme answer category. Does it have to be true that the problem is causes almost entirely by local industry in order to justify clamping down in that area? Definitely not! As long as local industry is contributing to the problem, then clamping down on them is justified.

Let's look at a simplified argument to illustrate this principle:

Bob is in debt. If Bob wants to reduce his debt, he should stop buying so many pairs of shoes.

Choice (A) in the question posted in this thread is analagous to the following:

(A) Bob's debt is almost entirely due to spending too much money on shoes.

While it's certainly true that the author is assuming that at least SOME of Bob's debt is due to too many shoe purchases, it doesn't have to be true that it's entirely due to shoes to justify the author's conclusion.

Since this is an assumption EXCEPT question, we want to choose the answer that's NOT an assumption: choose (A).

I would choose A. But i am not sure of my answer

I also with A