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Last year, all of the medical waste

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Last year, all of the medical waste

by gmatdriller » Mon Aug 08, 2011 9:54 am
Last year, all of the medical waste at County Hospital was sterilized by autoclaving, then shredded. This process generated a large quantity of unusable material that ended up in a landfill. In order to reduce its trash this year to half of last year's total, the hospital has updated its waste removal practices. This year, it will autoclave all waste and then incinerate all non-plastic medical waste. This should decrease the number of tons of waste sent to the landfill by half.

Which of the following is required for the updated waste removal program to achieve its aim?

A. This year, the hospital will incinerate all possible materials.

B. The total quantity of medical waste generated at the hospital this year will be no greater than that generated last year.

C. The waste shredded this year will weigh no more than the waste shredded last year

D. Medical waste generated by County Hospital will contain a larger proportion of non-plastic waste this year than it did last year.

E. Separating plastic from non-plastic waste will cost the hospital half of what it cost last year to send the waste to landfills.

Explanations please.
OA C
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by Deepthi Subbu » Mon Aug 08, 2011 10:54 pm
Are you sure the OA is C ?

Here the plastic content and not the weight that matters . My take on this - B
Last edited by Deepthi Subbu on Mon Aug 08, 2011 11:40 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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by bubbliiiiiiii » Mon Aug 08, 2011 11:06 pm
Agree with Deepti.

GmatDriller, please re-check the answer. If still C, then please post the OE and source of question.
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by rppala90 » Mon Aug 08, 2011 11:22 pm
I will go with B.
Because denial test of B will clearly undermine the conclusion of decreasing the number of tons of waste sent to landfill by half.

Passage states that total waste generated by hospital = 10 units.
autoclaving + shred = large quantity of unusable material = lets say 8 units.
Updated practice:
autoclaving + incinerate = 4 units of unusable material.
so the assumption is atleast 4 units of waste can be incinerated.

Answer choice "B" states that this year waste <= last years waste.
meaning this year also there will be 8 units of waste.
So the above assumptions will hold good for this year also.

But if we deny B, then that means this years waste > 10 units.
Hence autoclaving +incinerate will also be left with > 4 units of landfill. (which is more than half of last year's total-4-.)

Answer C is not correct because weight is out of scope to the passage.
Answer D is tempting but not correct, according to me, because the non-plastic waste need not be larger than last year. It could be same as last year
and still the conclusion will be true. So this is not passing the denial test.
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by DhruvXVII » Mon Aug 08, 2011 11:29 pm
IMO B
How is the OA C?? :?
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by need720+ » Tue Aug 09, 2011 1:45 am
IMO C

B. The total quantity of medical waste generated at the hospital this year will be no greater than that generated last year. (But what if after autoclaving, followed by shreddeding, the weight of shredded waste is actually greater that weight of waste shredded last year. It is actually the shredded waste that is going landfill. And, option C gives information that the waste shredded this year will weigh no more than the waste shredded last year. This is what we want. We should not care for total quantity of waste.)
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by Deepthi Subbu » Tue Aug 09, 2011 2:18 am
Good point. I somehow overlooked the word shredded in C.
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by Ozlemg » Wed Aug 10, 2011 3:50 am
gmatdriller wrote:Last year, all of the medical waste at County Hospital was sterilized by autoclaving, then shredded. This process generated a large quantity of unusable material that ended up in a landfill. In order to reduce its trash this year to half of last year's total, the hospital has updated its waste removal practices. This year, it will autoclave all waste and then incinerate all non-plastic medical waste. This should decrease the number of tons of waste sent to the landfill by half.

Which of the following is required for the updated waste removal program to achieve its aim?

A. This year, the hospital will incinerate all possible materials.

B. The total quantity of medical waste generated at the hospital this year will be no greater than that generated last year.

C. The waste shredded this year will weigh no more than the waste shredded last year

D. Medical waste generated by County Hospital will contain a larger proportion of non-plastic waste this year than it did last year.

E. Separating plastic from non-plastic waste will cost the hospital half of what it cost last year to send the waste to landfills.

Explanations please.
OA C
Why not D? Could someone elaborate?
The more you suffer before the test, the less you will do so in the test! :)
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by Frankenstein » Wed Aug 10, 2011 4:12 am
Hi,
What if Medical waste itself is much more than that of last year such that the shredded waste will be more even with low proportion of non-plastic waste? So, D is incorrect.
Cheers!

Things are not what they appear to be... nor are they otherwise
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by gmatdriller » Sun Aug 14, 2011 2:45 pm
source: grockit.com

Official Explanation:
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
The question stem tells us that non-plastic waste makes up approximately half of the
waste currently being sent to the landfill. Therefore, in order for incinerating to
eliminate half of the waste sent to the landfill, the amount of waste needs to stay
constant, or the amount of plastic waste needs to stay constant.

B: The total quantity of medical waste generated at the hospital this year will be no greater than that generated last year.

This isn't a requirement: even if it collects more waste, the hospital could still cut in half the amount of waste sent to the landfill.

C: The waste shredded this year will weigh no more than the waste shredded last year.

This is the credited response. This is a requirement for the program to meet its criteria for success. The weight of waste sent to the landfill needs to be half of what it was last year.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Initially I had doubts about the OA as well, but the statement that "This should decrease the
number of tons of waste sent to the landfill by half" somehow reinforces choice C.

What do GMAT gurus think?
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by gmatjeet » Mon Aug 15, 2011 11:08 am
But there is no mention of shredding in the new plan?
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by gmatdriller » Mon Aug 15, 2011 7:54 pm
gmatjeet wrote:But there is no mention of shredding in the new plan?
Last year:
autoclave + shredding; all wastes to landfill

This year:
autoclave only; wastes are then separated into plastic + non-plastic
Plastics go to landfill, while non-plastics go to the incinerating plant.
we want to be sure that wgt. of PLASTICS = wgt. of NON-PLASTICS
If both weights are equal, program achieves its aim.

My initial doubt: that total weight after autoclaving (new process) remains as that in
last year does not guarantee that wgt of plastics = non-plastics.
This can be verified using various combinations of weights, but I need other opinions.
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by garima99 » Mon Aug 15, 2011 8:18 pm
Last year, all of the medical waste at County Hospital was sterilized by autoclave, then shredded. This process generated a large quantity of unusable material that ended up in a landfill. In order to reduce its trash this year to half of last year's total, the hospital has updated its waste removal practices. This year, it will autoclave all waste and then incinerate all non-plastic medical waste. This should decrease the number of tons of waste sent to the landfill by half.

Which of the following is required for the updated waste removal program to achieve its aim?

A. This year, the hospital will incinerate all possible materials.

B. The total quantity of medical waste generated at the hospital this year will be no greater than that generated last year.

C. The waste shredded this year will weigh no more than the waste shredded last year

D. Medical waste generated by County Hospital will contain a larger proportion of non-plastic waste this year than it did last year.

E. Separating plastic from non-plastic waste will cost the hospital half of what it cost last year to send the waste to landfills.
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by 1947 » Thu Feb 09, 2012 7:16 pm
I also think there should have been explicit mention of shredding in new plan for choice C to be true.
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