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brushfires

by jain2016 » Tue Apr 05, 2016 8:54 am
During the recent spate of brushfires in the Southwest, homeowners who lived near affected areas were advised to douse their roofs with water to prevent their houses from catching fire before evacuating the area. After the fires were brought under control and the homeowners were allowed to return to the area, many who doused their roofs discovered significant fire damage to their houses. Clearly, then, dousing their roofs was a wasted effort.

Which of the following, if true, would most weaken the conclusion above?


A) The houses of owners who did not douse the roofs with water suffered appreciably more fire damage than did those of owners who did douse the roofs with water.

B) Not all homeowners who doused their roofs did so to the same extent.

C) The fire insurance rates for those who doused their roofs did not increase after the fire.

D) The houses that suffered the least damage were those in which the owners remained and continuously doused the roofs.

E) Most of the homeowners who doused their roofs had been through a brushfire evacuation before.

OAA

Hi Experts ,

Whats wrong with option D.

I eliminated optionA, because it shows the comparison and the argument doesn't have that.

Please explain and correct me .

Thanks,

SJ
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by fabiocafarelli » Wed Apr 06, 2016 3:51 am
1. The passage claims that the existence of fire damage to houses whose roofs were doused signifies that dousing the roofs was absolutely useless - in other words, A WASTED EFFORT. Therefore, in order to weaken this conclusion, you have to find an option that shows that dousing the roofs was effective to at least some degree.

2. You say that you eliminated option A because it contains a comparison that is not in the passage. But the question is not whether the comparison is in the passage, but rather whether the comparison will have some impact on the conclusion. It can do this only if it is RELEVANT. And since option A establishes that more fire damage was suffered by those who did not douse their roofs that by those who doused them, the comparison is in fact relevant: it shows that dousing lessened the fire damage, and was therefore NOT entirely useless - i.e. NOT a wasted effort.

3. Now either I am having an off day and something is escaping me, or option D is also correct. If that's the case, this is not an ideal practice question. If remaining in the house and dousing the roof means that an owner's home is going to suffer less damage - THE LEAST DAMAGE, in fact - then dousing the roof is not entirely useless - it is, in fact, fairly efficacious, and therefore decidedly NOT a wasted effort.
If you try the Negation Test on option D, and replace LEAST with MOST, it will be clear that continuously dousing the roof was indeed useless, so strengthening the conclusion that dousing was A WASTED EFFORT. Thus, in its original form, option D weakens the conclusion - or I'm blind Freddy.

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