Land mines

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Land mines

by siddhu161 » Fri Jan 24, 2014 10:08 pm
Using armored vehicles to detonate buried land mines entails an unavoidable risk of injury or fatality, but disarming and removing land mines manually currently entails an even greater such risk to those who remove land mines per mine removed. Therefore, in order to reduce the risk of injury or fatality without decelerating the effort to remove buried land mines, we must increase the use of armored vehicles and disarm fewer land mines by hand.

Which of the following, if true, most seriously undermines the argument above?

A. Manual mine disarmers can be quickly trained in methods that significantly decrease their risk of injury or fatality.

B. Injuries caused by manual disarmament tend to be far more serious than injuries caused by armored vehicle detonations.

C. The delivery of armored vehicles with which to detonate buried land mines can be organized easily by military field operatives.

D. Land mines detonated by armored vehicles destabilize the land surrounding the mine, while land mines that are successfully disarmed manually cause no such damage.

E. Hiring and training those who remove mines by hand is far less costly than is importing heavy armored vehicles to detonate buried land mines.

OA is A. Though it was one of my shortlisted choice, I crossed that later as there is no comparison given with that of armored vehicles; there is a possibility that vehicles also could be modified immediately to be used as per requirement. If it is the case then D seems to be correct choice.
Please help me with the same.
Source: — Critical Reasoning |

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by [email protected] » Sat Jan 25, 2014 8:13 pm
Hi siddhu161,

In CR questions, it's important to stay focused on the information that you're given, since the correct answer will be based on that information (and not on anything else). The logic behind this prompt is based on a comparison between manual removal of land mines and using armored vehicles to remove land mines.

The Facts:
Both using armored vehicles and manually removing mines includes an unavoidable risk of injury or fatality.
Manually removing landmines has a GREATER risk of injury/fatality per mine removed.

The Conclusion:
To reduce the risk of injury or fatality, we must increase the use of armored vehicles and decrease the use of manual disarmament.

The Logic:
Since armored vehicles are mathematically safer, then it makes sense to use them more often. For this logic to work, we have to assume that armored vehicles WILL CONTINUE to be safer than manual removal.

We're asked for a way to WEAKEN the above argument, so we're probably looking for an answer that will point out that manual removal will actually be safer for some reason.

Between the 2 choices that you mentioned. Answer A tells us that manual removal can become safer than it currently is (and by extending that logic, it could end up being safer than armored removal). Answer D discusses damage to the surround land, which has no bearing on the argument and is irrelevant.

Final Answer: A

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by David@VeritasPrep » Mon Jan 27, 2014 6:59 pm
As Rich said it is important to focus on the specific wording of the argument.

In this case the argument says "but disarming and removing land mines manually currently entails an even greater such risk to those who remove land mines per mine removed."

What is the key word? What is the word that they did not have to use? That is what you want to look for. The adjective, the adverb, the quantifier, the word that did not need to be used. In this case that word is "currently." As soon as I read that word I had the key to this argument.

Why would they say "currently." Why not just say that removing land mines manually entails a greater risk and leave it at that? Why indicate that this is just true currently? That sets up the idea that this might change if only something different were to happen.

And that is where choice A comes in. It is the one choice that responds to the word currently and indicates why this situation is only true now. If the manual disarmers are trained then they become safer. Please notice that the adjective for the armored vehicles is "unavoidable" as in "unavoidable risk." So when you say "there is a possibility that vehicles also could be modified immediately to be used as per requirement." that is actually incorrect! The risk with armored vehicles is unavoidable.

Choice D was never in the running. It has nothing to do with reducing the risk of injury or fatality from disarming the mine as mentioned in the conclusion.
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