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mysterious illness-expert please comment

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by vikram4689 » Wed Jun 22, 2011 8:04 pm
Thanks,also i realized that "head of regime" is not mentioned in argument, so can i take it as a basis to remove any choice that uses "head of regime". This is a logical conclusion ques which are similar to MUST BE TRUE and therefore should not use any outside info. Am I correct ?
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by GMATGuruNY » Thu Jun 23, 2011 12:51 pm
garima99 wrote:When the government of a nation announced recently that a leader of the nation's political opposition had died of a mysterious illness in prison, few seasoned observers of the regime were surprised. As the police captain in an old movie remarked when asked about the condition of a prisoner, "We're trying to decide whether he committed suicide or died trying to escape."
The statements above invite which of the following conclusions?
(A) The opposition leader was probably killed trying to escape from prison.
(B) The opposition leader may not be dead at all.
(C) It is unlikely that the head of the regime knows the true cause of the opposition leader's death.
(D) The opposition leader probably killed himself.
(E) The regime very likely was responsible for the death of the opposition leader.
I received a PM asking me to comment.

As Tami noted, the key word here is decide. You determine or report the truth. If you don't want to report the truth, you decide what lie to tell. The argument implies that -- just as the police captain likely was responsible for the death of the prisoner and had to decide what lie to tell the public -- so too was the regime likely responsible for the death of the opposition leader. Rather than report the truth, the regime decided to announce that the cause of death was a "mysterious illness".

The correct answer is E.

This CR seems to be testing our ability to interpret the subtleties of language: the hidden meaning behind the word decide. I can't imagine seeing this CR on the GMAT. The GMAT doesn't ask which answer choice the passage "invites". What is the source?
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by Tani » Thu Jun 23, 2011 2:05 pm
Agree with Mitch. A very strange question asking you to understand the sarcasm in the reply.
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