Critical Reasoning

I have written this post to discuss a particular problem type (mostly cause and effect) mixed with negatives/positives + conditionals. This gets my head spinning, and I loose my focus and not able to apply a strategy I have. Example to explain the same.
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Kernland imposes a high tariff on the export of unprocessed cashew nuts in order to ensure that the nuts are sold to domestic processing plants. If the tariff were lifted and unprocessed cashews were sold at world market prices, more farmers could profit by growing cashews. However, since all the processing plants are in urban areas, removing the tariff would seriously hamper the government's effort to reduce urban unemployment over the next five years.

Which of the following, if true, most seriously weakens the argument?

A. Some of the by-products of processing cashews are used for manufacturing paints and plastics.
B. Other countries in which cashews are processed subsidize their processing plants.
C. More people in Kernland are engaged in farming cashews than in processing them.
D. Buying unprocessed cashews at lower than world market prices enables cashew processors in Kernland to sell processed nuts at competitive prices.
E. A lack of profitable crops is driving an increasing number of small farmers in Kernland off their land and into the cities.

OA is E and I have absolutely no issues in dealing with D, a strengthener, and E.
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This questions has clearly stated conclusion so it is easy to identify the same. The problem lies with the fact that we have causal relation ship containing negative elemtns both sides:

Removing the tarrif -> hamper the goverment plan (meant to improve employment in urban areas)
In general cause and effect question (X -> Y) , we have standards way to weaken:

1. Not X -> Y 2. X -> NOT Y 3. Z -> Y 4 Y -> X so far so good.

Problem begins when X and Y do contain some negative elements as in the given example and questions asks again to weaken them.At this stage, i can't get clear translation in my head so looking for a robust way to attack.In the given question:
X is removing tax: Y is hampers the plan

Before proceeding to answer choices, what should be paraphrased in my mind or at least when I read the anser choice, i should be able to quickly answer?

so X -> Y ; can i say NOT X -> NOT Y ? that means Not removing Tax - > does not hamper the plan..or in other words:

Keep the tarrif -> good for unemployment plan; now I can use normal cause and effect arugment again as these are my new SIMPLIFIED X and Y?

And Can i extend it further to cases such as NOT X -> Y; weaken question.

So by negating both sides we can also say X -> Not Y; and now we can start looking and see which ever case is given.

And is this strategy robus and can be applied in all cases ?

thank you so much for detailed insight on this.

GMATMadeEasy wrote:I have written this post to discuss a particular problem type (mostly cause and effect) mixed with negatives/positives + conditionals. This gets my head spinning, and I loose my focus and not able to apply a strategy I have. Example to explain the same.
-------------
Kernland imposes a high tariff on the export of unprocessed cashew nuts in order to ensure that the nuts are sold to domestic processing plants. If the tariff were lifted and unprocessed cashews were sold at world market prices, more farmers could profit by growing cashews. However, since all the processing plants are in urban areas, removing the tariff would seriously hamper the government's effort to reduce urban unemployment over the next five years.

Which of the following, if true, most seriously weakens the argument?

A. Some of the by-products of processing cashews are used for manufacturing paints and plastics.
B. Other countries in which cashews are processed subsidize their processing plants.
C. More people in Kernland are engaged in farming cashews than in processing them.
D. Buying unprocessed cashews at lower than world market prices enables cashew processors in Kernland to sell processed nuts at competitive prices.
E. A lack of profitable crops is driving an increasing number of small farmers in Kernland off their land and into the cities.

OA is E and I have absolutely no issues in dealing with D, a strengthener, and E.
------
This questions has clearly stated conclusion so it is easy to identify the same. The problem lies with the fact that we have causal relation ship containing negative elemtns both sides:

Removing the tarrif -> hamper the goverment plan (meant to improve employment in urban areas)
In general cause and effect question (X -> Y) , we have standards way to weaken:

1. Not X -> Y 2. X -> NOT Y 3. Z -> Y 4 Y -> X so far so good.

Problem begins when X and Y do contain some negative elements as in the given example and questions asks again to weaken them.At this stage, i can't get clear translation in my head so looking for a robust way to attack.In the given question:
X is removing tax: Y is hampers the plan

Before proceeding to answer choices, what should be paraphrased in my mind or at least when I read the anser choice, i should be able to quickly answer?

so X -> Y ; can i say NOT X -> NOT Y ? that means Not removing Tax - > does not hamper the plan..or in other words:

Keep the tarrif -> good for unemployment plan; now I can use normal cause and effect arugment again as these are my new SIMPLIFIED X and Y?

And Can i extend it further to cases such as NOT X -> Y; weaken question.

So by negating both sides we can also say X -> Not Y; and now we can start looking and see which ever case is given.

And is this strategy robus and can be applied in all cases ?

thank you so much for detailed insight on this.

Look for an answer choice that says the following: Lifting the tariff -- thereby enabling farmers to increase their profits -- will HELP (not hamper) the effort to reduce urban unemployment.

Answer choice E does just what we need: A lack of profitable crops is driving an increasing number of small farmers in Kernland off their land and into the cities. This answer implies that lifting the tariff -- thereby enabling farmers to increase their profits -- will stop farmers from moving to the cities, where they likely have been adding to the unemployment rate.

GMATMadeEasy,

You are complicating things too much here, in my opinion.

I prefer, on a weaken question, to state the conclusion as writtenand then look for the answer choice that points to the opposite of the conclusion.

The conclusion here is "removing the tariff would seriously hamper the government's effort to reduce urban unemployment over the next five years."

Now let's look to the opposite which is "removing the tariff would NOT seriously hamper the government's effort to reduce urban unemployment over the next five years."

C and E are the contenders here. As you say, D might strengthen a little and A and B are out of scope. C does not get us to where we want to go because we do not know what impact the tariffs have...E works for us because we see that without the tariffs we will have more cashew farmers and so fewer unemployed heading to the cities.

@David@VeritasPrep: Sometimes a bit of shout from Guru is good for students .

When i did start this question set, i was very much tired of a hectic day. For the last few weeks, I have been doing well in all sort of CR questions after having analyzed questions for an hour or even more(literally). Things were finally drilled down to simple things ,for example - peserve the conclusion in approriate stae (king treatment), MIP, close read looking for whole/gap in assumption etc . But all of sudden this cocnlusion struck to my brain and I literally could not think anymore. I stopped the time practise of mix question set (official questions). And in past, some questions had taken way too long to process (OGQuestion competitor and non competitor benchmarking) . So i posted the above post. But I supose, as you say, I need to keep things simple and stay relaxed.

I can't thank you enough.

David@VeritasPrep wrote:GMATMadeEasy,

You are complicating things too much here, in my opinion.

I prefer, on a weaken question, to state the conclusion as writtenand then look for the answer choice that points to the opposite of the conclusion.

The conclusion here is "removing the tariff would seriously hamper the government's effort to reduce urban unemployment over the next five years."

Now let's look to the opposite which is "removing the tariff would NOT seriously hamper the government's effort to reduce urban unemployment over the next five years."

C and E are the contenders here. As you say, D might strengthen a little and A and B are out of scope. C does not get us to where we want to go because we do not know what impact the tariffs have...E works for us because we see that without the tariffs we will have more cashew farmers and so fewer unemployed heading to the cities.

Hi David,
doesn't increasing number of small farmers...off their land and into the cities mean that more farmers are moving to cities? but your analysis says the opposite..

Sachindia - That is because it is a weaken question so we want to go for the opposite of what is stated in the conclusion.

Okay let's try this -

The argument concludes that removing the tariff will hurt in the effort to reduce urban unemployment. This is because the cashews are processed in the cities and without the tariff some of those processing jobs might be lost.

Now we want to weaken so we are saying that "removing the tariff will NOT hurt the effort to reduce urban unemployment."

So, if choice E is applied, and the farmers can sell their cashews for more money they can stay on the land and they will not be driven to the cities in search of jobs. This means that there will be fewer unemployed farmers in the cities looking for work so the urban unemployment may well go down even with the loss of some cashew processing jobs.

Can you please explain what is wrong with C?

Thanks

GMATGuruNY wrote:

GMATMadeEasy wrote:I have written this post to discuss a particular problem type (mostly cause and effect) mixed with negatives/positives + conditionals. This gets my head spinning, and I loose my focus and not able to apply a strategy I have. Example to explain the same.
-------------
Kernland imposes a high tariff on the export of unprocessed cashew nuts in order to ensure that the nuts are sold to domestic processing plants. If the tariff were lifted and unprocessed cashews were sold at world market prices, more farmers could profit by growing cashews. However, since all the processing plants are in urban areas, removing the tariff would seriously hamper the government's effort to reduce urban unemployment over the next five years.

Which of the following, if true, most seriously weakens the argument?

A. Some of the by-products of processing cashews are used for manufacturing paints and plastics.
B. Other countries in which cashews are processed subsidize their processing plants.
C. More people in Kernland are engaged in farming cashews than in processing them.
D. Buying unprocessed cashews at lower than world market prices enables cashew processors in Kernland to sell processed nuts at competitive prices.
E. A lack of profitable crops is driving an increasing number of small farmers in Kernland off their land and into the cities.

OA is E and I have absolutely no issues in dealing with D, a strengthener, and E.
------
This questions has clearly stated conclusion so it is easy to identify the same. The problem lies with the fact that we have causal relation ship containing negative elemtns both sides:

Removing the tarrif -> hamper the goverment plan (meant to improve employment in urban areas)
In general cause and effect question (X -> Y) , we have standards way to weaken:

1. Not X -> Y 2. X -> NOT Y 3. Z -> Y 4 Y -> X so far so good.

Problem begins when X and Y do contain some negative elements as in the given example and questions asks again to weaken them.At this stage, i can't get clear translation in my head so looking for a robust way to attack.In the given question:
X is removing tax: Y is hampers the plan

Before proceeding to answer choices, what should be paraphrased in my mind or at least when I read the anser choice, i should be able to quickly answer?

so X -> Y ; can i say NOT X -> NOT Y ? that means Not removing Tax - > does not hamper the plan..or in other words:

Keep the tarrif -> good for unemployment plan; now I can use normal cause and effect arugment again as these are my new SIMPLIFIED X and Y?

And Can i extend it further to cases such as NOT X -> Y; weaken question.

So by negating both sides we can also say X -> Not Y; and now we can start looking and see which ever case is given.

And is this strategy robus and can be applied in all cases ?

thank you so much for detailed insight on this.

Look for an answer choice that says the following: Lifting the tariff -- thereby enabling farmers to increase their profits -- will HELP (not hamper) the effort to reduce urban unemployment.

Answer choice E does just what we need: A lack of profitable crops is driving an increasing number of small farmers in Kernland off their land and into the cities. This answer implies that lifting the tariff -- thereby enabling farmers to increase their profits -- will stop farmers from moving to the cities, where they likely have been adding to the unemployment rate.

Amrabdelnaby wrote:Can you please explain what is wrong with C?

Thanks

The conclusion is that efforts to reduce URBAN UNEMPLOYMENT will be hampered if the tariff is removed.
The correct answer choice must weaken this conclusion.
C: More people in Kernland are engaged in farming cashews than in processing them.
It is stated as a PREMISE that removal of the tariff will enable cashew farmers to sell their cashews on the world market rather than to domestic processing plants -- plants that are located exclusively in URBAN AREAS.
Whether more people work as farmers than as processors is irrelevant.
Regardless, the tariff will result in LESS WORK for URBAN PROCESSORS.
Thus, C does nothing to weaken the conclusion that the tariff will have a negative effect on the urban employment rate.
Eliminate C.