Critical Reasoning

The tulu, a popular ornamental plant, does not reproduce naturally, and is only bred and sold by specialized horticultural companies. Unfortunately, the tulu is easily devastated by a contagious fungal rot. The government ministry plans to reassure worried gardeners by requiring all tulu plants to be tested for fungal rot before being sold. However, infected plants less than 30 weeks old have generally not built up enough fungal rot in their systems to be detected reliably. And many tulu plants are sold before they are 24 weeks old.

Which of the following, if performed by the government ministry, could logically be expected to overcome the problem with their plan to test for fungal rot

(I am just going to give the correct answer (d), and why I chose my answer(E). The GMAT book's explanation just isn't sufficient enough of an answer.)

Correct answer
(D) Ensuring that all tulu plants not be sold before they are 30 weeks old.

How can this be correct? Just because they are not sold until 30 weeks old, does not imply a requirement that they have to be tested at 30 weeks. So based off of this answer, a company can test this plant on the 20th week, and then sell it on the 30th, which would still render the plan inneffective!

The answer I chose
(E)Quarantining all tulu plants from horticultural companies at which any case of fungal rot has been detected until those plants can be tested for fungal rot.

This reason, if implemented should solve the problem of infected plants, correct? The OG actually doesn't dispute this fact, but the reason the OG said this was wrong is because the companies could hypothetically sell the plants before they are 30 weeks old, to minimize the chance of detection.

Please understand the actual correct answer as stated by the OG has a solid factual weakness, where the answer I chose, (the incorrect one) only has a theoretical weakness, which is based only on an assumption. How could I have chosen the right answer?

The government's plan is to make testing for fungal rot compulsory before selling tulu plants. However, disease detection cannot happen until the 30th week whereas plants are sold before the 24th week. So, in order to make the plan effective, the government should:
(1) Not only make testing compulsory BUT ALSO
(2) Ensure that plants that fail the test must not be sold

Plants can pass or fail the test only in the 30th week. Hence D is a sound measure.

E is too extreme. It is less suitable when compared to D.

I would think about it as "What is the governments ultimate goal"

Well if you look at your answer and the correct answer, the governments main concern is that the plants are not be sold before 30 weeks. There could be more reasons other then the ones stated but we don't care. Logically what is to be expected is that these tulu plant sellers will now HAVE to wait 30 weeks opposed to selling early at 24 weeks.

I was stuck between answer choice D and E and asked myself the question stated above and got the right answer. Sometimes rewording the question helps!

Hope this helps

msbelasco wrote:The tulu, a popular ornamental plant, does not reproduce naturally, and is only bred and sold by specialized horticultural companies. Unfortunately, the tulu is easily devastated by a contagious fungal rot. The government ministry plans to reassure worried gardeners by requiring all tulu plants to be tested for fungal rot before being sold. However, infected plants less than 30 weeks old have generally not built up enough fungal rot in their systems to be detected reliably. And many tulu plants are sold before they are 24 weeks old.

Which of the following, if performed by the government ministry, could logically be expected to overcome the problem with their plan to test for fungal rot

(I am just going to give the correct answer (d), and why I chose my answer(E). The GMAT book's explanation just isn't sufficient enough of an answer.)

Correct answer
(D) Ensuring that all tulu plants not be sold before they are 30 weeks old.

How can this be correct? Just because they are not sold until 30 weeks old, does not imply a requirement that they have to be tested at 30 weeks. So based off of this answer, a company can test this plant on the 20th week, and then sell it on the 30th, which would still render the plan inneffective!

The answer I chose
(E)Quarantining all tulu plants from horticultural companies at which any case of fungal rot has been detected until those plants can be tested for fungal rot.

This reason, if implemented should solve the problem of infected plants, correct? The OG actually doesn't dispute this fact, but the reason the OG said this was wrong is because the companies could hypothetically sell the plants before they are 30 weeks old, to minimize the chance of detection.

Please understand the actual correct answer as stated by the OG has a solid factual weakness, where the answer I chose, (the incorrect one) only has a theoretical weakness, which is based only on an assumption. How could I have chosen the right answer?

The argument in E has an inherent weakness which renders it incorrect:
The government requires that ALL plants be tested before being sold. E only talks about the companies where at least one case has already been detected. This allows for other companies' plants to go untested even though those plants may be infected. This is a big weakness. Hence E is incorrect

Let me know if this helps

(E) Please note that this choice talks about the horticulture companies where any case of the tulu plants being infested, has been detected. However, this alternate tells nothing about the horticulture companies where the infestation hasn't been detected. We can't unjustly assume that those horticulture companies can sell their tulu plants even if a single case of infestation hasn't been detected.

In my perspective, the reason why choice (E) should be eliminated because it will lead to the quarantine of ALL tulu plants including those that are older than 30 weeks and have not been infested. Again nothing has been said in the alternate that what the company will do of these plants. Whether it will sell of these tulu plants or keep them in quarantine. All we can make out from this choice, is that it doesn't serve the purpose of government to sell tulu plants that haven't been tested for fungal rot before any potential signs of infestation manifest.

Thanks
Prashant