Endanger Species

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Endanger Species

by kyabe » Sat Jul 11, 2009 10:36 am
In parts of the Caribbean, the manatee, an endangered marine mammal, has long been hunted for its meat. Having noted the manatee hunters’ expert knowledge of manatees’ habits, local conservationists are encouraging the hunters to stop hunting and instead to take tourists on boat rides to see manatees. Tourist interest is high, so the plan has promise of achieving the twin goals of giving the former hunters a good income and helping ensure the manatees’ survival.

Which of the following, if true, raises the most serious doubt about the plan’s chance of success?
A. Many tourists who visit these parts of the Caribbean are uninterested in manatees
and would not be willing to pay what the former manatee hunters would have to
charge for boat rides to see manatees.
B. Recovery of the species would enable some hunting to continue without putting
the manatees’ survival in jeopardy again.
C. In areas where manatees have traditionally been hunted for food, local people
could easily replace the manatee meat in their diets with other foods obtained
from the sea.
D. There would not be enough former manatee hunters to act as guides for all the
tourists who want to see manatees.
E. To maintain their current income, manatee hunters who switched to guiding
tourists would have to use far larger boats and make many more trips into the
manatees’ fragile habitat than they currently do.

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by raghavsarathy » Sat Jul 11, 2009 11:37 am
IMHO - E

The choice is between A and E.. But A says that "tourists are uninterested in seeing Mantees" whereas the main statement says that "The interest is high".. Hence I eliminated A and chose E.

E provides a reason for the hunters not accepting this proposal.

OA pls

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by ssmiles08 » Sat Jul 11, 2009 12:35 pm
IMO A.

It was b/w A and D.

I would pick A b/c if the tourists had no interest in seeing manatees, and not pay money, the plan would be compromised b/c the conservationists are neither protecting the manatees nor are they stopping the hunters from hunting.

High tourist interest is IMO not the same as interest in seeing manatees.

Tourist interests could be high, but the stimulus doesn't state what the interests of the tourists are.

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by kyabe » Sat Jul 11, 2009 1:26 pm
Although OA is E.. I am still not certain that the answer should be E and not A..

One more thing we can notice here is that A is directly contradicting the premise ie "Tourist interest is high" by "Many tourists who visit these parts of the Caribbean are uninterested in manatees "...

Please pour in your expert comments...

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by cameronwu » Sat Jul 11, 2009 2:22 pm
raghavsarathy wrote:IMHO - E

The choice is between A and E.. But A says that "tourists are uninterested in seeing Mantees" whereas the main statement says that "The interest is high".. Hence I eliminated A and chose E.

E provides a reason for the hunters not accepting this proposal.

OA pls
^^ That's the reason. Agree 100%

Be wary of any answer choice that directly contradicts a premise of the argument. Since the stimulus says that interest is high, you can't just say in an answer choice that there is little interest. You aren't even answering the original stimulus question if an answer replaces a premise.

Notice how E brings in a completely alternative reason for why the program might not achieve its dual goals of preserving the species and maintaining hunter income. - big boats. Nothing about it contradicts any premise.

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by ssmiles08 » Sat Jul 11, 2009 2:31 pm
I dont know...I am not entirely convinced...what does big boats have to do with protecting manatees?

The answer choice seems to assume that "fragile habitats" means they wouldn't be able to survive.

It could also assume that the hunters could carefully maneuver through these fragile habitats and still protect the manatees.

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by cameronwu » Sat Jul 11, 2009 3:33 pm
ssmiles08 wrote:I dont know...I am not entirely convinced...what does big boats have to do with protecting manatees?

The answer choice seems to assume that "fragile habitats" means they wouldn't be able to survive.

It could also assume that the hunters could carefully maneuver through these fragile habitats and still protect the manatees.

I agree that you have to make that an assumption - but I also think it's reasonable. The very last phrase in the sentence gives it a little more weight too by giving it an element of relativity in, "than they currently do."

However, I stand by my reasoning for discarding A (the only other viable option) - You can't change a given premise in the answer choice because you aren't even answering the original question any more if a condition has changed.

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by scoobydooby » Sat Jul 11, 2009 6:21 pm
another reason to eliminate A.

A says: many tourists are uninterested in seeing manatees=> some tourists are uninterested (many=some)=> some tourists are interested in seeing manatees.

the number of the latter group may be greater than the number of the former group, so A doesnt definitely raise doubts about the plans success

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by gmat740 » Sat Jul 11, 2009 7:34 pm
We have to look for answer choices which don't contradict the main statement(because the main statement is always correct)

It would be better to see these kinds of weakening question from Resolve the paradox point of view.
Its very common in LSAT and now when I gave GMAT a couple of weeks back,I faced this kind of question.

I will write again the main statement
In parts of the Caribbean, the manatee, an endangered marine mammal, has long been hunted for its meat. Having noted the manatee hunters’ expert knowledge of manatees’ habits, local conservationists are encouraging the hunters to stop hunting and instead to take tourists on boat rides to see manatees. Tourist interest is high, so the plan has promise of achieving the twin goals of giving the former hunters a good income and helping ensure the manatees’ survival.


A. Many tourists who visit these parts of the Caribbean are uninterested in manatees and would not be willing to pay what the former manatee hunters would have to charge for boat rides to see manatees.

So we can easily kick out A

Answer has to be E

Hope this helps

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by Stacey Koprince » Wed Jul 15, 2009 8:55 am
Received a PM asking me to respond. I don't see a source listed for this question. Can you please tell me the source? I can't respond until then, because there are certain sources I'm not permitted to discuss.
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by kyabe » Wed Jul 15, 2009 9:15 am
@Stacey..

My aplologies for not including the source of the question.. This question is taken from GMAT set..

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Re: Endanger Species

by doclkk » Wed Jul 15, 2009 9:26 am
kyabe wrote:In parts of the Caribbean, the manatee, an endangered marine mammal, has long been hunted for its meat. Having noted the manatee hunters’ expert knowledge of manatees’ habits, local conservationists are encouraging the hunters to stop hunting and instead to take tourists on boat rides to see manatees. Tourist interest is high, so the plan has promise of achieving the twin goals of giving the former hunters a good income and helping ensure the manatees’ survival.

Which of the following, if true, raises the most serious doubt about the plan’s chance of success?
A. Many tourists who visit these parts of the Caribbean are uninterested in manatees
and would not be willing to pay what the former manatee hunters would have to
charge for boat rides to see manatees.
B. Recovery of the species would enable some hunting to continue without putting
the manatees’ survival in jeopardy again.
C. In areas where manatees have traditionally been hunted for food, local people
could easily replace the manatee meat in their diets with other foods obtained
from the sea.
D. There would not be enough former manatee hunters to act as guides for all the
tourists who want to see manatees.
E. To maintain their current income, manatee hunters who switched to guiding
tourists would have to use far larger boats and make many more trips into the
manatees’ fragile habitat than they currently do.
I'm gonna take a stab at explaining this. I think we all agree here that the answer is either A or E.

I chose E - here's why.

I'm not gonna address the contradiction to the stimulus seeing how people aren't accepting that here. I think its an important consideration and I was told not to contradict the stimulus but let's just leave that out.

The question asks for most serious doubt into the plan.

The plan = Decrease the hunting/killing of manatees. This is the primary goal in mind - look at the tone and the premises. The plan says an additional benefit would be that this pays well thereby the hunters won't want to hunt anymore. This question boils down to a matter of money.

So the main thing to poke at is - what will discourage the hunters from hunting these animals. Give them an incentive.

Let's say that being a tour guide pay well only if there are a lot of tourists - the hunter is pissed because he's giving up hunting to give people tours. So there aren't that many tourists which means he won't make much money because his livelihood depends on there being tourists.

The other statement (E) is that the hunter now needs to pay these large overhead costs to invest in huge boats to take the tourists.

I guess people in A are assuming that the hunter is really entrepreneurial and thereby wouldn't mind the high overhead expense. The more important issue to address is that, he (or she i guess) has to work even harder. Why would I EVER want to work harder to make the same amount of money? All things equal - I have to work harder to make the same money. This doesn't sound appealing to me. THere's no incentive for the hunter.

The first one would be I would be equvalent to working less for less money. Less tourists = less work = less money.

All less.

The other alternative is more work for same money.

Consider this example.

So if someone makes 100,000 / yr working 40 hours a week. Giving them 50,000 a year for 20 hours a week ok - maybe you want more hours but we can't give that to you.

What if I make 100,000 yr and in order to continue to work I'd have to purchase my overhead and work 50 hours a week.

I dunno - which of these two would upset someone more? From a purely economics perspective and all things being equal I would argue the latter.

I understand its not 1-1 but i think this is the clearest I can do =/

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by Stacey Koprince » Wed Jul 15, 2009 1:08 pm
Got it. Okay. This is basically a bad question. (I don't trust the GMAT Sets as a source, by the way. Some of the questions are fine - even great - but some are really not.)

I'm sure whoever wrote this was trying to get at the idea that manatees are also endangered by boats. Manatees stay pretty close to the surface and boats with propeller blades cut the manatees up pretty badly. But we can't assume people know that - the GMAT wouldn't do that. And "fragile habitat" is not enough to make the point.

If E were better constructed, then we wouldn't be having this debate about A. Basically, A says "many" tourists aren't interested, but we don't necessarily need "many" to be interested. We just need "enough" to be interested to make enough trade for the manatee-hunters-turned-tour-guides. And "enough" could very well be a minority of the current tourist trade.

Bottom line: I wouldn't study this one. (I sure would like to re-write it though! :))
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by kyabe » Wed Jul 15, 2009 1:11 pm
Thanks Stacey..

I just love it when u say "Bottom line: I wouldn't study this one" :)

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by kanha81 » Wed Jul 15, 2009 1:35 pm
Stacey Koprince wrote:Got it. Okay. This is basically a bad question. (I don't trust the GMAT Sets as a source, by the way. Some of the questions are fine - even great - but some are really not.)

I'm sure whoever wrote this was trying to get at the idea that manatees are also endangered by boats. Manatees stay pretty close to the surface and boats with propeller blades cut the manatees up pretty badly. But we can't assume people know that - the GMAT wouldn't do that. And "fragile habitat" is not enough to make the point.

If E were better constructed, then we wouldn't be having this debate about A. Basically, A says "many" tourists aren't interested, but we don't necessarily need "many" to be interested. We just need "enough" to be interested to make enough trade for the manatee-hunters-turned-tour-guides. And "enough" could very well be a minority of the current tourist trade.

Bottom line: I wouldn't study this one. (I sure would like to re-write it though! :))
Thank you Stacey. Initially, my question was why not [D]? D perfectly puts it away that there would not be many former hunters who would be interested in doing the job as a tour guide. If so, then does that not weaken the conclusion of the argument?
Anyway, I was quite annoyed by this question, but since you said that this question is not good enough to study, I won't go any further.
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