GMATPrep: Gardening Magazine

since the overall intention is to weaken the argument

Choice E is the best choice among all

Chice C states the demand does not exceed the rareflower population in the wild, if there are 10 animals of a particular species left and the demand is only for 5( animals to be killed ) , doesnt mean species is not decreasing

Sorry misssed out on A point ( Dint read it carefully)

Ans is A without doubt

Actually, the OA is E
Can anyone give a good analysis of the answer choices?

Premise: Articles in Gardening Magazine often spur sales of the plants they describe, particularly among people new to gardening. Most of the rare wildflowers sold to gardeners have been difficult to propogate under cultivation, so plant sellers often collect them in the wild.

Conclusion: Accordingly, we will no longer publish articles or accept advertisements praising the beauty of rare wildflowers. Our new policy is part of our efforts to halt this yearly plundering of our native plant populations.

I found the below sentence very difficult to comprehend. The reference to gardeners finding it difficult to propogate the rare wildflowers & so the plant sellers collect them in the wild is a crazy construction.
Most of the rare wildflowers sold to gardeners have been difficult to propogate under cultivation, so plant sellers often collect them in the wild.

Anyway, after some deliberation I figured out that these wildflowers were difficult to propogate under cultivation even for the sellers in the nursery & so, they often collected them in the wild & sold them to the garderners.

Now, the question is asking us to find the most appropriate option that would doubt the magazine's new policy. If the magazine is going to stop publishing articles or advertisements on these flowers, how is it going to effect anything?

A. Sure, new garderners will be discouraged, but how is it going to weaken the magazine's policy?

B. Out of scope

C. Demand for rare wildflowers rarely exceeds the plants that can be collected in the wild. The magazine's new policy is not going to get effected much, because it is already a rare phenomenon.

D. Out of scope.

E. If the revenue from the sales of the plants collected in the wild is going to help develop techniques to propogate rare wildflowers, then the magazine's policy is going to hinder this development. This statement seriously questions the magazine's policy.

I am pretty sure that the right answer is A.

samanthaJ79 wrote:I am pretty sure that the right answer is A.

Its E

samanthaJ79 wrote:I am pretty sure that the right answer is A.

This question is flawed.

The goal of the magazine: To halt yearly plundering of rare wildflowers.

The Plan: Refrain from printing articles or advertisements that would encourage plundering.

OA, E: Revenues from sales (plundering) of rare wildflowers support discovery of ways to propagate the wildflowers in nurseries.

Superficially the OA seems to indicate that stopping the plunder of the wildflowers stops support of discovery of techniques the use of which would reduce the plundering, and so the magazine is defeating its own purposes by stopping the plunder. That superficial analysis of the effects of the the plan is the rationale supporting the OA.

However, that analysis does not really make sense, because to the degree that the magazine stops the plunder, the discovery of the new techniques becomes unnecessary.

In fact, in the real world, the development of such techniques would likely continue to be somewhat supported, possibly by commercial interests, even if the revenues from sales of the wildflowers were to decrease.

So the OA to this question does not really make sense, and therefore this question is flawed.

Answer choice A, while maybe not convincing, makes more sense than the OA, in that the magazine's policy would reduce the degree to which new gardeners are discouraged from choosing to purchase rare wildflowers as the gardeners continue gardening in future seasons.

This question presents a conundrum in that by choosing a superficially correct answer one gets the question "right", while by choosing what appears to be a better answer one gets it wrong.

My takeaway is that if I run into such a question on the GMAT I am going to assume that the appropriate depth of analysis to use for getting right answers is closer to that which gets me to answer choice E than to that which shows that choice E does not really make sense. Really though, one can only hope that any question that one sees on the test is better constructed than this one is.