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save the koala

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by aditi.ahlawat » Thu Apr 12, 2012 2:06 am
"If the forest continues to disappear at its present pace, the koala will approach extinction," said the biologist.
"So all that is needed to save the koala is to stop deforestation," said the politician.
Which one of the following statements is consistent with the biologist's claim but not with the politician's claim?
(A) Deforestation continues and the koala becomes extinct.
(B) Deforestation is stopped and the koala becomes extinct.
(C) Reforestation begins and the koala survives.
(D) Deforestation is slowed and the koala survives.
(E) Deforestation is slowed and the koala approaches extinction.
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Source: — Critical Reasoning |

by ice_rush » Thu Apr 12, 2012 7:55 am
IMO B
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by GMAT Kolaveri » Thu Apr 12, 2012 8:53 am
aditi.ahlawat wrote:"If the forest continues to disappear at its present pace, the koala will approach extinction," said the biologist.
"So all that is needed to save the koala is to stop deforestation," said the politician.
Which one of the following statements is consistent with the biologist's claim but not with the politician's claim?
(A) Deforestation continues and the koala becomes extinct.
(B) Deforestation is stopped and the koala becomes extinct.
(C) Reforestation begins and the koala survives.
(D) Deforestation is slowed and the koala survives.
(E) Deforestation is slowed and the koala approaches extinction.
Biologist: same rate -> extinsion (make this consitent)
Politician: stop deforestation -> kola will be saved. ( make this inconsistent)

Personally i dont like any of the options given. But i ll go with B bcoz it is for sure inconsistent with Politician.

Whats the OA for this question.

Lunarpower: your inputs will be very valuable in this question.
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by aditi.ahlawat » Thu Apr 12, 2012 10:26 am
correct answer is B.
Pls can you explain in detail, how your reached to it
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by chris@magoosh » Thu Apr 12, 2012 2:23 pm
Interesting question...feels a bit LSAT-y :).

Anyhow, the main difference between the two claims is in what they are implying. The politician, in saying that stopping deforestation will prevent the extinction of the koala, is implying that nothing else can lead to the distinction of the koala.

The biologist is only saying that unless deforestation is stopped the koala will go extinct. He (or she) is not implying that there is no other threat to the koala's extinction, the way politician is.

Therefore, the answer that is not consistent with the politician's viewpoint is one that says deforestation will stop, BUT the koala will go extinct. To say that deforestation is stopped and the koala still goes extinct is not inconsistent with the biologist's view. This exactly what answer choice (B) says:

(B) Deforestation is stopped and the koala becomes extinct. ANSWER.
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by GMAT Kolaveri » Thu Apr 12, 2012 6:28 pm
chris@magoosh wrote:Interesting question...feels a bit LSAT-y :).

Anyhow, the main difference between the two claims is in what they are implying. The politician, in saying that stopping deforestation will prevent the extinction of the koala, is implying that nothing else can lead to the distinction of the koala.

The biologist is only saying that unless deforestation is stopped the koala will go extinct. He (or she) is not implying that there is no other threat to the koala's extinction, the way politician is.

Therefore, the answer that is not consistent with the politician's viewpoint is one that says deforestation will stop, BUT the koala will go extinct. To say that deforestation is stopped and the koala still goes extinct is not inconsistent with the biologist's view. This exactly what answer choice (B) says:

(B) Deforestation is stopped and the koala becomes extinct. ANSWER.
B is a better option among the given options. But i dont this is the best AO.
Is stopping deforestation consistent with "the forest continues to disappear at its present pace" ??? It is definitely not consistent with politician's view.

@Aditi
I chose B becoz B is definitely not consistent with politician's view. But i m finding it difficult to explain how it is consistent with biologist
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by vikram4689 » Thu Apr 12, 2012 9:46 pm
The biologist is only saying that unless deforestation is stopped the koala will go extinct
Chris, I did not get this inference, in my view Biologist is saying that
unless deforestation is stopped at current rate the koala will go extinct
Hence I guess D agrees with Biologist. Where i am going wrong..
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by lunarpower » Thu Apr 26, 2012 11:39 pm
i received a message regarding this thread.

the most important advice regarding this problem -- at least for gmat aspirants -- is to ignore it; the gmat won't contain questions like this one. worse, this sort of thinking -- the kind of thinking that deals with strictly logical/mathematical "consistency", etc. -- will actually be detrimental to your performance on the gmat, which doesn't test that kind of thinking.

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even though this problem is useless for gmat preparation, here's a (very brief) summary of how to resolve your doubts:
when a statement has the form "if x then y", the statement deals only with the possibilities when x is actually true (this is the significance of the "if x" part).
any situation in which x is false is automatically irrelevant.
from the standpoint of "logical consistency" (again, an idea that won't help you on the gmat), any statement that's irrelevant to something is always "consistent" with that thing. (everything is "consistent", except things that actually contradict each other.)
Ron has been teaching various standardized tests for 20 years.

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