Critical Reasoning

People who have spent a lot of time in contact with animals often develop animal-induced allergies, some of them quite serious. In a survey of current employees in major zoos, about 30 percent had animal-induced allergies. Based on this sample, experts conclude that among members of the general population who have spent a similarly large amount of time in close contact with animals, the percentage with animal-induced allergies is not 30 percent but substantially more. Which of the following, if true, provides the strongest grounds for the experts' conclusion?

A. A zoo employee who develops a serious animal-induced allergy is very likely to switch to some other occupation.
B. A zoo employee is more likely than a person in the general population to keep one or more animal pets at home
C. The percentage of the general population whose level of exposure to animals matches that of a zoo employee is quite small.
D. Exposure to domestic pets is, on the whole, less likely to cause animal induced allergy than exposure to many of the animals kept in zoos.
E. Zoo employees seldom wear protective gear when they handle animals in their care.

[spoiler]OA: Will be posted later. Please discuss each answer choice in detail[/spoiler]

aspirant2011 wrote:People who have spent a lot of time in contact with animals often develop animal-induced allergies, some of them quite serious. In a survey of current employees in major zoos, about 30 percent had animal-induced allergies. Based on this sample, experts conclude that among members of the general population who have spent a similarly large amount of time in close contact with animals, the percentage with animal-induced allergies is not 30 percent but substantially more. Which of the following, if true, provides the strongest grounds for the experts' conclusion?

A. A zoo employee who develops a serious animal-induced allergy is very likely to switch to some other occupation.
B. A zoo employee is more likely than a person in the general population to keep one or more animal pets at home
C. The percentage of the general population whose level of exposure to animals matches that of a zoo employee is quite small.
D. Exposure to domestic pets is, on the whole, less likely to cause animal induced allergy than exposure to many of the animals kept in zoos.
E. Zoo employees seldom wear protective gear when they handle animals in their care.

[spoiler]OA: Will be posted later. Please discuss each answer choice in detail[/spoiler]

The key word in the argument is current: the survey included not ALL zoo employees, past and present, but only current zoo employees.
One way to strengthen the argument would be to show that, because the survey included only current employees, the percentage with allergies was underreported.

Answer choice A does just what we need: A zoo employee who develops a serious animal-induced allergy is very likely to switch to some other occupation. Thus, the current employees surveyed did not include all the employees with allergies who had left. This means that the percentage of people who developed allergies while working at the zoo was likely much higher than 30%, suggesting that the percentage of non-employees who develop allergies also will be much higher than 30%.

The correct answer is A.

A: correct. Already explained by Mitch
B:OOS
C:Weaken the argument
D:Irrelevant(pet vs zoo animals is not issue in Arg)
E: OOS

What is the OA?

GMATGuruNY wrote:

aspirant2011 wrote:People who have spent a lot of time in contact with animals often develop animal-induced allergies, some of them quite serious. In a survey of current employees in major zoos, about 30 percent had animal-induced allergies. Based on this sample, experts conclude that among members of the general population who have spent a similarly large amount of time in close contact with animals, the percentage with animal-induced allergies is not 30 percent but substantially more. Which of the following, if true, provides the strongest grounds for the experts' conclusion?

A. A zoo employee who develops a serious animal-induced allergy is very likely to switch to some other occupation.
B. A zoo employee is more likely than a person in the general population to keep one or more animal pets at home
C. The percentage of the general population whose level of exposure to animals matches that of a zoo employee is quite small.
D. Exposure to domestic pets is, on the whole, less likely to cause animal induced allergy than exposure to many of the animals kept in zoos.
E. Zoo employees seldom wear protective gear when they handle animals in their care.

[spoiler]OA: Will be posted later. Please discuss each answer choice in detail[/spoiler]

The key word in the argument is current: the survey included not ALL zoo employees, past and present, but only current zoo employees.
One way to strengthen the argument would be to show that, because the survey included only current employees, the percentage with allergies was underreported.

Answer choice A does just what we need: A zoo employee who develops a serious animal-induced allergy is very likely to switch to some other occupation. Thus, the current employees surveyed did not include all the employees with allergies who had left. This means that the percentage of people who developed allergies while working at the zoo was likely much higher than 30%, suggesting that the percentage of non-employees who develop allergies also will be much higher than 30%.

The correct answer is A.

thanks a lot mitch for your wonderful explanation ........Yup the OA is A

why B cant b d ans? anyone xplain plz

Well this problem can be easily solved by way of elimination. All the options other than A serves to weaken the argument. Only A (though a very feeble premise) somewhat validates the argument.

GMATGuruNY wrote:

aspirant2011 wrote:People who have spent a lot of time in contact with animals often develop animal-induced allergies, some of them quite serious. In a survey of current employees in major zoos, about 30 percent had animal-induced allergies. Based on this sample, experts conclude that among members of the general population who have spent a similarly large amount of time in close contact with animals, the percentage with animal-induced allergies is not 30 percent but substantially more. Which of the following, if true, provides the strongest grounds for the experts' conclusion?

A. A zoo employee who develops a serious animal-induced allergy is very likely to switch to some other occupation.
B. A zoo employee is more likely than a person in the general population to keep one or more animal pets at home
C. The percentage of the general population whose level of exposure to animals matches that of a zoo employee is quite small.
D. Exposure to domestic pets is, on the whole, less likely to cause animal induced allergy than exposure to many of the animals kept in zoos.
E. Zoo employees seldom wear protective gear when they handle animals in their care.

[spoiler]OA: Will be posted later. Please discuss each answer choice in detail[/spoiler]

The key word in the argument is current: the survey included not ALL zoo employees, past and present, but only current zoo employees.
One way to strengthen the argument would be to show that, because the survey included only current employees, the percentage with allergies was underreported.

Answer choice A does just what we need: A zoo employee who develops a serious animal-induced allergy is very likely to switch to some other occupation. Thus, the current employees surveyed did not include all the employees with allergies who had left. This means that the percentage of people who developed allergies while working at the zoo was likely much higher than 30%, suggesting that the percentage of non-employees who develop allergies also will be much higher than 30%.

The correct answer is A.

Hi,
Why cant the answer be (e). If the zoo workers wear protective gears, then they will have a lower probability to get an animal induced allergy then the general population will have by exposure to their domestic pets.
Could you please explain.
Thanks.

Sukant wrote: Why cant the answer be (e). If the zoo workers wear protective gears, then they will have a lower probability to get an animal induced allergy then the general population will have by exposure to their domestic pets.
Could you please explain.
Thanks.

E. Zoo employees seldom wear protective gear when they handle animals in their care.
E states that zoo employees do not wear protective gear.
It is unlikely that the general population wears protective gear: a pet-owner does not put on a glove to pet the family dog.
Since E implies that zoo employees and the general population are SIMILAR, it WEAKENS the conclusion that the two groups will have DIFFERENT allergy rates.

Hi Verbal Experts,
Could you please shed some light on why EXACTLY Option C is wrong ?

RBBmba@2014 wrote:Hi Verbal Experts,
Could you please shed some light on why EXACTLY Option C is wrong ?

Answer choice C is a classic "sounds as if says something key while actually being completely irrelevant" wrong answer choice.

What is being compared is the percentage of zoo employees reporting allergies and the percentage experiencing allergies of non zoo employed people who have spent a large amount of time in close contact with animals.

So we are looking at percentages of two specific sets, zoo employees and non zoo employed people who have spent a large amount of time in close contact with animals. The fact that the second set is SMALL IN RELATION TO THE GENERAL POPULATION does nothing to affect the percentages WITHIN that set.

Got you Marty.

Basically the CONCLUSION is valid on the basis of the two following aspects, I guess:

1. Either the there is some INCONSISTENCY with zoo sample (and this INCONSISTENCY is basically explained in the OA). This is more likely reason for the CONCLUSION to hold good, I guess, because ARGUMENT says "Based on this sample, experts conclude that..."

2. Or the total numbers in the SECOND SET is substantially less than the number of zoo employees exposed to animal-induced allergies.

Now,Option C seems to imply: although this percentage is small, by common sense we can say that the real numbers -- the number of people with zoo-like animal exposure among the general population -- are NOT likely to be *that* small because anyway general population would be substantially more than the zoo employees,GENERALLY. Now these numbers may be more than the zoo-employees having animal exposure - we really don't know; although they're likely to be more because general population would ALWAYS likely to be GREATER than the the zoo employees...

Therefore,precisely, C doesn't really help identify whether the animal-induced allergies will be more than 30 percent or not among members (who're aligned to zoo-like animal exposure) of the general population; in other words, C doesn't help in strengthening the CONCLUSION.

Does it sound correct ?

RBBmba@2014 wrote:Got you Marty.

Basically the CONCLUSION is valid on the basis of the two following aspects, I guess:

1. Either the there is some INCONSISTENCY with zoo sample (and this INCONSISTENCY is basically explained in the OA). This is more likely reason for the CONCLUSION to hold good, I guess, because ARGUMENT says "Based on this sample, experts conclude that..."

2. Or the total numbers in the SECOND SET is substantially less than the number of zoo employees exposed to animal-induced allergies.

Now,Option C seems to imply: although this percentage is small, by common sense we can say that the real numbers -- the number of people with zoo-like animal exposure among the general population -- are NOT likely to be *that* small because anyway general population would be substantially more than the zoo employees,GENERALLY. Now these numbers may be more than the zoo-employees having animal exposure - we really don't know; although they're likely to be more because general population would ALWAYS likely to be GREATER than the the zoo employees...

Therefore,precisely, C doesn't really help identify whether the animal-induced allergies will be more than 30 percent or not among members (who're aligned to zoo-like animal exposure) of the general population; in other words, C doesn't help in strengthening the CONCLUSION.

Does it sound correct ?

While you end up at the right place, the way you get there does not really sound right to me. From what you said I get the impression that you are still falling into the trap of choice C.

We really don't care about the relative sizes of the absolute numbers of members of the sets.

There could be thousands of zoo employees and only 50 non zoo employees who have had zoo employee type of exposure to animals, and the argument would still work, because all we care about is the percentages within the two sets.

The experts' conclusion in that case would be that while 30% of the thousands of zoo employees experience animal induced allergies, more than 30% of the 50 non zoo employees who spend similar amounts of time around animals experience animal induced allergies.

There could be 10,000 zoo employees and 500,000 non zoo employees who spend a lot of time around animals, or 1,000,000 zoo employees and 10 non zoo employees, and the argument would still work.

Marty,
I hear you here...however, my first reasoning in my last post above seems to be correct,I guess (because the INCONSISTENCY in the sample is explained in the OA -- some Zoo employees having such allergy are MOST LIKELY to be outside the Zoo currently as they've switched jobs with the result that they're NOW part of the GENERAL POPULATION.)

Quick thoughts ?