Critical Reasoning

Hi
Can someone help me in understanding the following CR:-

Monarch butterflies, whose average life span is nine months, migrate from the midwestern United States to selected forests outside Mexico City. It takes at least three generations of monarchs to make the journey, so the great-great-grandchildren who finally arrive in the Mexican forests have never been there before. Yet they return to the same trees their forebears left. Scientists theorize that monarchs, like homing pigeons, map their routes according to the earth’s electromagnetic fields. As a first step in testing this theory, lepidopterists plan to install a low-voltage transmitter inside one grove of “butterfly trees” in the Mexican forests. If the butterflies are either especially attracted to the grove with the transmitter or especially repelled by it, lepidopterists will have evidence that______
(A) monarch butterflies have brains, however minuscule
(B) monarch butterflies are sensitive to electricity
(C) low-voltage electricity can affect butterflies, whether positively or adversely
(D) monarchs map their routes according to the earth’s electromagnetic fields
(E) monarchs communicate in intergenerationally via electromagnetic fields

Please provide your answer with proper reasoning.

I believe the answer is C.

The reason for my answer.
Its easy to narrow it down to B or C.
The reason i believe it is C is becuase of the following reason.
--Scientists are implanting the low voltage transmitter in a butterfly tree and testing the behavior of butterflies, not just monarchs.

Whats the correct answer?

Hi JayofBay

Well your answer seems appealing.But in one of the books i saw they mentioned the answer as b). Now one thing i completely missed was that c) doesnt contain "monarch" and in general applies to butterflies.

Whereas b) is specific to monarch type of butterflies only.I too agree that the correct answer is c).

cheers
Subhojit

Here is one more for discussion :-

In a marketing study, consumers were given two unlabeled cartons of laundry detergent. One carton was bright green and yellow; the other was drab brown and gray. After using the detergent in the two cartons for one month, 83 percent of the consumers in the study reported that the detergent in the bright green and yellow carton cleaned better. This study shows that packaging has a significant impact on consumers’ judgment of the effectiveness of a laundry detergent.
Which of the following, if true, would most strengthen the conclusion drawn in the marketing study?
(A) The detergent in the bright carton contained bleach crystals; the detergent in the drab carton did not.
(B) The detergents in the two cartons were the same.
(C) The detergents in the two cartons were different, but they had both been laboratory tested.
(D) The detergent in the drab carton was a popular name brand; the detergent in the bright carton was generic.
(E) The detergent in the drab carton was generic; the detergent in the bright carton was a popular name brand.


I am for A). Any other takers for A or other options?

subhojit

My Answer: B

My reasoning: First, I identified the conclusion of the excerpt: "packaging has a significant impact on consumers’ judgment of the effectiveness of a laundry detergent". To strengthen this claim, you want to show that the only factor that affects consumers is the packaging. Therefore, you can eliminate A, C, D, and E since each of these choices describes differences between the 2 bottles. If these differences exist, then they could impact the perceive effectiveness of one detergent over the other (and not the packaging alone). That would not strengthen the conclusion.

What is the correct answer?

Hey

Thanks for the reponse.The correct answer is however C. Surprised arent u? I also was taken aback when i saw this answer.Still i dont know how to justify C as a correct option.

cheers
Subhojit

I believe that the answer is B.

To strengthen the claim that packaging has a significant impact on consumers’ judgment of the effectiveness of a laundry detergent, we must say that the detergents in the two cartons were the same and the packaging makes the difference.

I too would go for option B.

This would make sense only if Apples are compared with Apples.
To prove that its only the packaging that makes difference, the detergent in the cartons should be same.

baffled?> :

seems like a HongKong Market here


same case's with the next CR thread
I learned we have an expert mod here?

hey can you sort this out for us?

I believe the answer is C because lab tests results could prove or disprove the customers choice of better detergent. Which means when they are both the same then it's true that packaging made a difference- but can you prove that it did not?
With lab tests you can refute that choice and say that inspite of a certain result( may be bright and yellow was worse) customers chose the detergent purely based on packaging.

OA-B?javascript:emoticon(':(')
pls explain

Monarch butterflies, whose average life span is nine months, migrate from the midwestern United States to selected forests outside Mexico City. It takes at least three generations of monarchs to make the journey, so the great-great-grandchildren who finally arrive in the Mexican forests have never been there before. Yet they return to the same trees their forebears left. Scientists theorize that monarchs, like homing pigeons, map their routes according to the earth’s electromagnetic fields. As a first step in testing this theory, lepidopterists plan to install a low-voltage transmitter inside one grove of “butterfly trees” in the Mexican forests. If the butterflies are either especially attracted to the grove with the transmitter or especially repelled by it, lepidopterists will have evidence that______
(A) monarch butterflies have brains, however minuscule
(B) monarch butterflies are sensitive to electricity
(C) low-voltage electricity can affect butterflies, whether positively or adversely
(D) monarchs map their routes according to the earth’s electromagnetic fields
(E) monarchs communicate in intergenerationally via electromagnetic fields

in my opinion the BUTTERFLIES CR has B as right answer, but nevertheless B and C seem too much close to be a real GMAT question...

In the DETERGENT question I don't see a reason why B should not be correct...it's clearly the right answer.

Butterflies CR

B has to be the answer.
C and D are trick options

The argument is about monarch butterflies so the conclusion should also be about monarch butterflies and not butterflies in general. Its like your conducting experiments on apples and you conclusion is on fruits.
C makes this mistake. It tricks you by talking about butterflies in general, when the focus in on monarch butterflies specifically. So C is incorrect.

D is a trick option because the experiment conducted is just the "first step" taken to prove the whether MB use earth EM fields. How can you prove this from just the first step of the experiment (unless the experiment has only one step which is not mentioned in the argument).
A & D are irrelevant.

For the detergent CR
The correct answer should be B. If the the content of the 2 boxes is identical, it strengthens the conclusion that what really affected the consumers choice was the color code of the boxes and not the detergents themselves.

whats the right idiom???

Baffled with one CR!!!
OR
Baffled by one CR!!!
OR
Baffled of one CR!!!