Critical Reasoning

The West Indian manatee, a distant relative of the elephant, returned to the sea some 50 million years ago. These thousand-pound herbivores inhabit the warm coastal waters where Americans like to play. Despite conservation efforts, criminal penalties for harming these creatures, and an overabundance of SAVE THE MANATEE! bumper stickers, none of these animals can be considered safe.

Which of the following, if true, most strongly supports the argument above?

A) Last year, several manatees were mysteriously killed by an unidentified toxin.

B) All manatees swim at depths that make them vulnerable to the blades of motorboat engines.

C) Most tourists are unaware of the ongoing efforts to save the manatee.

D) The population of manatees in the wild has dwindled to fewer than 2,500 animals.

E)Although dozens of manatee deaths are documented each year, many more deaths go unreported.

IMO B:
This is an copied question from gmatprep by mgmat. In option B you start wondering from where this motor blade came? It came because it was a nonsensical copy of another real Q.

The question stem states that 'Despite conservation efforts, criminal penalties for harming these creatures, and an overabundance of SAVE THE MANATEE! bumper stickers, none of these animals can be considered safe. '.

Its rather a very strong conclusion (NONE!!) and hence would require a strong support. Only B comes close to that.

All manatee swim at a level at which they can be harmed and they cannot escape it anyways!!


Can you advise the OA??

Thanx

Hi there!

Here's how I broke this argument down:

Conclusion: Manatees are not safe.

Evidence: None given.

Assumptions: That conservation efforts + criminal penalties + stickers do not equal "safe"

Question Rephrase: What supports the argument?

Prediction: Anything that more clearly shows how the author's definition of "safe" is NOT reached by current efforts -- basically proof that manatees are unsafe

(D) may be tempting, but does not show how the statistic relates to the current efforts. I would also choose (B) because of the phrase in the passage "where Americans like to play." If Americans' motorboats are hurting all of the manatees, it makes sense why the conservation efforts, criminal penalties and stickers have not made the animals more "safe."

The OA is B

It should be B since the argument speaks about how NONE of the manatees can be considered to be safe...

And option B tells us that ALL the manatees swim at depths where they may be hurt by the motorboats...

VivianKerr wrote:Hi there!

Here's how I broke this argument down:

Conclusion: Manatees are not safe.

Evidence: None given.

Assumptions: That conservation efforts + criminal penalties + stickers do not equal "safe"

Question Rephrase: What supports the argument?

Prediction: Anything that more clearly shows how the author's definition of "safe" is NOT reached by current efforts -- basically proof that manatees are unsafe

(D) may be tempting, but does not show how the statistic relates to the current efforts. I would also choose (B) because of the phrase in the passage "where Americans like to play." If Americans' motorboats are hurting all of the manatees, it makes sense why the conservation efforts, criminal penalties and stickers have not made the animals more "safe."

I am still not convinced how you eliminated C so easily.
The argument says,
Despite conservation efforts, criminal penalties for harming these creatures, and an overabundance of SAVE THE MANATEE! bumper stickers, none of these animals can be considered safe..

To strengthen this, it can be useful to say that most(mind it!!) of the tourists are not aware of the government's efforts and hence might not be careful towards the animal's preservation and hence might be responsible for their killings ?

Yes the OA is B. It came down to the options A and B for me. But because in the stimulus, such an extreme word all manatees is used, B is the correct answer.

The GMAT loves to trap the students, by using words like some, many, most , often, all, most often than not etc etc etc...

Thank You.