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by prachi18oct » Tue May 27, 2014 9:08 pm
A design flaw in deep-sea research submarines has led to the failures of many research projects. These projects are insured against such losses; as a result, claims against policies underwriting deep-sea research projects have increased greatly. Insurance premiums for these projects have been raised in response to these higher claims. These cost increases have led research institutions to try to accomplish more research with fewer research projects.

Which of the following, if true, taken together with the information above, best supports the conclusion that the cost of conducting deep-sea research will continue to rise?

a)Since the risk to insurers of underwriting research is spread over relatively few projects, insurance premiums are necessarily very high.
b)When research projects fail, the causes of failure are generally impossible to pinpoint with accuracy.
c)The greater the research demands placed on a given project, the more likely that project will fail.
d)Most research institutions undertake so few projects that no economies of scale can be realized.
e)Since many research projects are undertaken by coalitions of research institutions, inefficiencies are inevitable

Answers and explanations are welcome!
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Source: — Critical Reasoning |

by theCodeToGMAT » Tue May 27, 2014 11:02 pm
Is the answer[spoiler] {C}??
[/spoiler]
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by prachi18oct » Tue May 27, 2014 11:56 pm
Yes , you are right.The answer is c.Can you explain the reason as well?I could not reason it to be C.
How would greater demand increase the possibilities of failure of the research projects?
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by theCodeToGMAT » Wed May 28, 2014 1:16 am
prachi18oct wrote:Yes , you are right.The answer is c.Can you explain the reason as well?I could not reason it to be C.
How would greater demand increase the possibilities of failure of the research projects?
fault -> failure --> Higher claims --> policy cost increasing --> more research with fewer project.

Conclusion: Cost will increase

Here, we need a bridging fact(Assumption) which should state that more research demands inrease the failure.

{C} states the same.
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by [email protected] » Wed May 28, 2014 5:08 pm
Hi prachi18oct,

This CR prompt is built on an idea called "causality" (the idea that one thing causes another thing to happen). It's a type of logic that GMAT writers will use a few times on Test Day, so it's worth knowing (and knowing how to spot).

The question asks us for an answer that will support the idea that the cost of conducting deep-sea research will continue to RISE....

The Facts:
-A flaw in deep-sea research subs has led to the FAILURE of MANY research projects.
-These projects are INSURED against losses.
-Claims against policies have increased GREATLY.
-The higher claims have lead to HIGHER INSURANCE PREMIUMS.
-The higher premiums have led research institutions to try to ACCOMPLISH MORE with FEWER research projects.

The Logic:
The prompt itself literally puts the ideas "in order" for you, in the form of a big "causality chain." We need an answer that supports these facts AND affirms that the cost of conducting research will RISE. Since the ultimate cause of the rise in costs is the failure of research projects, we need an answer that addresses that point. Only answer C properly addresses that point.

GMAT assassins aren't born, they're made,
Rich
Contact Rich at [email protected]
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