Critical Reasoning

can someone pls explain me the answers to this i am really confused.

117. The wild mouflon sheep of the island of Corsica are direct descendants of sheep that escaped from domestication on the island 8,000 years ago. They therefore provide archaeologists with a picture of what some early domesticated sheep looked like, before the deliberate selective breeding that produced modern domesticated sheep began.
The argument above makes which of the following assumptions?
(A) The domesticated sheep of 8,000 years ago were quite dissimilar from the wild sheep of the time.
(B) There are no other existing breeds of sheep that escaped from domestication at about the same time as the forebears of the mouflon.
(C) Modern domesticated sheep are direct descendants of sheep that were wild 8,000 years ago.
(D) Mouflon sheep are more similar to their forebears of 8,000 years ago than modern domesticated sheep are to theirs.
(E) The climate of Corsica has not changed at all in the last 8,000 years.

118. Among the more effective kinds of publicity that publishers can get for a new book is to have excerpts of it published in a high-circulation magazine soon before the book is published. The benefits of such excerption include not only a sure increase in sales but also a fee paid by the magazine to the book's publisher.
Which of the following conclusions is best supported by the information above?
(A) The number of people for whom seeing an excerpt of a book in a magazine provides an adequate substitute for reading the whole book is smaller than the number for whom the excerpt stimulates a desire to read the book.
(B) Because the financial advantage of excerpting a new book in a magazine usually accrues to the book's publisher, magazine editors are unwilling to publish excerpts from new books.
(C) In calculating the total number of copies that a book has sold, publishers include sales of copies of magazines that featured an excerpt of the book.
(D) The effectiveness of having excerpts of a book published in a magazine, measured in terms of increased sales of a book, is proportional to the circulation of the magazine in which the excerpts are published.
(E) Books that are suitable for excerpting in high-circulation magazines sell more copies than books that are not suitable for excerpting.

119. In Swartkans territory, archaeologists discovered charred bone fragments dating back 1 million years. Analysis of the fragments, which came from a variety of animals, showed that they had been heated to temperatures no higher than those produced in experimental campfires made from branches of white stinkwood, the most common tree around Swartkans.
Which of the following, if true, would, together with the information above, provide the best basis for the claim that the charred bone fragments are evidence of the use of fire by early hominids?
(A) The white stinkwood tree is used for building material by the present-day inhabitants of Swartkans.
(B) Forest fires can heat wood to a range of temperatures that occur in campfires.
(C) The bone fragments were fitted together by the archaeologists to form the complete skeletons of several animals.
(D) Apart from the Swartkans discovery, there is reliable evidence that early hominids used fire as many as 500 thousand years ago.
(E) The bone fragments were found in several distinct layers of limestone that contained primitive cutting tools known to have been used by early hominids.

120. For a trade embargo against a particular country to succeed, a high degree of both international accord and ability to prevent goods from entering or leaving that country must be sustained. A total blockade of Patria's ports is necessary to an embargo, but such an action would be likely to cause international discord over the embargo.
The claims above, if true, most strongly support which of the following conclusions?
(A) The balance of opinion is likely to favor Patria in the event of a blockade.
(B) As long as international opinion is unanimously against Patria, a trade embargo is likely to succeed.
(C) A naval blockade of Patria's ports would ensure that no goods enter or leave Patria.
(D) Any trade embargo against Patria would be likely to fail at some time.
(E) For a blockade of Patria's ports to be successful, international opinion must be unanimous.

Good evening dolkar.tenzing.

I would like to proffer an explanation for Critical Reasoning question #119 in your post. (It appears in my edition of the GMAT Official Guide as question number 13.)

This question type is of the "Strengthen the Argument" variety. However, before we can strengthen an argument, we need to determine the conclusion - which thankfully, the stimulus tells us: "the claim that the charred bone fragments are evidence of the use of fire by early hominids."

The best approach to the right answer here is personalize the situation (as suggested by one of my study guides.) If we were asked by someone to prove that hominids used fire based on the bone fragment discovery, what evidence would we provide? (Even without the exact definition - we can deduce that early human beings are being discussed.)

Anything we could do to demonstrate that the hominids were directly associated with these bones would be most helpful in strengthening the argument about the hominid's use of fire. Now, armed with this goal - that somehow "hominids" and "bone fragments" need to be put together, we take a look at the answer choices.

Answer choices A, B, and D make no mention of the bone fragments at all. And while D does mention the hominids and fires, there is still no explanation for the bone fragments. Answers A and B do not mention the hominids at all.

Answer C leaves out the hominids and fire altogether - and just tells us that archaeologists put the bones back together. Well, that is interesting - but of no help to us in strengthening the argument about hominids using fire.

Then, finally, some light comes shining through with choice E. We are told that in several layers of limestone, archaeologists discovered not only these bone fragments, but cutting tools known to have been used by early hominids. (We can imagine these to have been something along the lines of early knives or some other sharp instruments for carving the meat.) And there we have made the bone fragment, hominid, fire, connection.

I hope this was helpful. Best regards.

Shelley

Good morning dolkar.tenzing.

CR question 118 is designed to confuse the tired test taker. The stimulus is fairly straight forward, but then the answer choices sound like gibberish. The right answer (A) is the most difficult to read.

We are given a simple claim: Publishers place excerpts of new books in high circulation magazines. A large number of the readers enjoy the excerpt, and immediately order the book from Amazon, or Barnes & Noble. We are asked to strengthen/support the conclusion.

Unfortunately, when we look through the answer choices, there is nothing that clearly says "high circulation + readers enjoyed excerpt = increased book sales." One of the wrong answers "D" lures us in because it has all the right words: book excerpts, effectiveness, sales of a book, magazine circulation. But the one major point it omits (thereby changing the stimulus) is "high circulation." The stimulus did not say that publishers had improved sales by placing the excerpts in all magazines. The magazines specifically had high circulations. This is such a subtle difference that I imagine most people would choose D for the answer.

The answer choice that GMAT is looking for is "A" - which is written in the most confusing, twisted way imaginable. If you can untwist the writing you get this:

"When some people read the excerpt in the magazine, this reading will be sufficient for them and they will not feel compelled to buy the book. However, a larger number of the magazine audience will read the excerpt, want to know more about the book and thus will buy the book."

I hope this was helpful. Best regards.

Shelley

Is the answer for 117, choice E.

Is the answer for 117 C ?
Since the archaeologists are trying to identify the differences in the sheep domesticated 8000 years ago and now. But for this the modern day sheep to be descendants of the sheep 8000 years ago.

117 should be C. whats the OA?

Here is why I thought that for 117, choice E was the best.
We have to establish a link between the mouflon sheep and sheep 8000 years ago. What if there has been a climate change in the island and the sheep evolved with it. Then the present day descendants will look nothing like thier ancestors.

Also, choice C states that the modern sheep are direct descendants of sheep that lived 8000 yrs ago. But the question says that there was cross-breeding in between. So even if the modern sheep are direct descendants, they will have traits similar to 2 different breeds. Hence archeologists will not be able to make a prediction with certainity.

seshadrivyas wrote:Here is why I thought that for 117, choice E was the best.
We have to establish a link between the mouflon sheep and sheep 8000 years ago. What if there has been a climate change in the island and the sheep evolved with it. Then the present day descendants will look nothing like thier ancestors.

Also, choice C states that the modern sheep are direct descendants of sheep that lived 8000 yrs ago. But the question says that there was cross-breeding in between. So even if the modern sheep are direct descendants, they will have traits similar to 2 different breeds. Hence archeologists will not be able to make a prediction with certainity.

ehhh, i think the choice E is not rellevant to the argument. the answer choice should be C
anyways, what is the OA?

I was not able to find the mouflon wild sheep question in my GMAT Official Guide, but I did locate the question along with the official answer at an MBA site. https://mbatown.com/community/Test-Serie ... ies-Part-3

The correct answer is listed as D, and here is my explanation:

8,000 years ago, sheep were originally running around in the wild -> Humans captured some of them in order to domesticate them -> A crafty lot of these sheep escaped from domestication and got back out into the wild.

Fast forward to modern times. Some archaeologists doing research need to determine: What did early domesticated sheep look like?

The archaeologists cannot use modern day sheep to answer this question, because the modern day sheep have undergone deliberate selective breeding. (Think of certain plants that have been cross-bred and how different they look from the original plant.)

So, if the archaeologists want to get a "picture" if you will, of the original domesticated sheep, they need to find some that have not been subjected to selective breeding. Answer D, fits the bill since it states exactly what we're looking for:

(D) Mouflon sheep are more similar to their forebears of 8,000 years ago than modern domesticated sheep are to theirs.

If D were not the case - and not critical - the archaeologists could just saunter over to Farmer Brown's place and take a look at his modern day domesticated sheep.

By the way, while B looks awfully enticing, the stimulus does not suggest that mouflon sheep were the only breed to escape from domestication - and if we select this answer, we are now officially out of scope of the argument.

And, if you are interested in one more explanation, you might like this one:

https://www.urch.com/forums/gmat-critica ... sheep.html Look for the reply from vedigaurav. (There are several incorrect guesses thrown in from other posters.)

I hope this proves helpful.

Shelley

Good Morning dolkar.tenzing.

Question #120 below appears in my Official GMAT Guide as question number 101. Here we are being asked to draw a conclusion based on the facts provided.

We are given the following information:

If the international community plans to institute a successful trade embargo against a country, two things must happen:

(a) No goods can go into that country - and no goods can come out of that country.
(b) All countries paticipating in the embargo must agree that this is a good idea and feel good about the action.

Now just imagine that there are countries that rely heavily on Patria (the country mentioned in the stimulus) for exports and imports. The stimulus tells us that the embargo is likely to cause international discord. Thus, since the stimulus states that for this embargo to work, there must be a high degree of international accord, answer choice D, explains that the embargo is likely to fail at some point.

How is this possible? Well, perhaps some country (or countries) might determine that the negative financial impact is too much to bear. Perhaps some countries might not like the idea of the citizens of Patria suffering. We do not know the nature of the possible international discord, but we are told that discord is likely. At that point, we would have removed one of the conditions upon which the success of the embargo rests. So, answer choice D is the official answer indicated by the GMAT Guide.

I hope this was helpful.

Shelley