Critical Reasoning

Dear Friends,

I was having problems in answering the following question.

Industrialists from the country Distopia were accused of promoting the Distopian intervention in the Arcadian civil war merely to ensure that the industrialists' facilities in Arcadia made substantial profits during the war. Yet this cannot be the motive since, as the Distopians foresaw, Distopia's federal expenses for the intervention were eight billion dollars, whereas, during the war, profits from the Distopian industrialists' facilities in Arcadia totaled only four billion dollars.

Which of the following, if true, exposes a serious flaw in the argument made in the second sentence above?
(A) During the Arcadian war, many Distopian industrialists with facilities located in Arcadia experienced a significant rise in productivity in their facilities located in Distopia.
(B) The largest proportion of Distopia's federal expenses is borne by those who receive no significant industrial profits.
(C) Most Distopian industrialists' facilities located in Arcadia are expected to maintain the level of profits they achieved during the war.
(D) Distopian industrialists' facilities in Arcadia made substantial profits before the events that triggered the civil war.
(E) Many Distopians expressed concern over the suffering that Arcadians underwent during the civil war.



Please help.

OA after some discussions.

Regards
Deano.

(C) is the answer as Dispotians saw the long term ...

Not able to understand this one. Please help.

Thanks.

I would choose B.

Here is my reasoning.

P1: Distopian industrialists are accused of promoting civil war to ensure substantial profits during the war.
P2: Federal expenses were $8B, but Distopian industries only made $4B in profit.

Conclusion: Distopian industries cannot be accused of promoting war.

Why? (Assumption) because the profit was not substantial (I think).

There seems to be a scope shift in P2. $8B is "Federal Expense", whereas $4B is "Industrial Profit". P2 is trying to compare "Federal expense" and "Industrial profit" - can't really compare them in my opinion. We are probably looking for an answer choice that attacks this.

(B) does exactly that. It says largest proportion of the federal expense was NOT borne by Distopian Industries => So the profit must have been substantial.


But I should say C is also quite tempting. The reason I chose B is because the argument is about profits made during the war. Also, C says the companies kept the level of profit. But I'm thinking the level of profits to begin with could have been not so substantial.

My 2cents. OA please.

Only B points out the flaw. Since the comparison for the argument is done between federal expenses in Arcadia and profits earned from factories in Arcadia, the argument assumes that it was the industrialists funding the war and hence they made no profit. If the expenses were incurred by people other than Industrialists, the whole argument presented in the second part falls apart.

Hence B.

What is the original answer?

Industrialists from the country Distopia were accused of promoting the Distopian intervention in the Arcadian civil war merely to ensure that the industrialists' facilities in Arcadia made substantial profits during the war. Yet this cannot be the motive since, as the Distopians foresaw, Distopia's federal expenses for the intervention were eight billion dollars, whereas, during the war, profits from the Distopian industrialists' facilities in Arcadia totaled only four billion dollars.

Which of the following, if true, exposes a serious flaw in the argument made in the second sentence above?
(A) During the Arcadian war, many Distopian industrialists with facilities located in Arcadia experienced a significant rise in productivity in their facilities located in Distopia.
(B) The largest proportion of Distopia's federal expenses is borne by those who receive no significant industrial profits.
(C) Most Distopian industrialists' facilities located in Arcadia are expected to maintain the level of profits they achieved during the war.
(D) Distopian industrialists' facilities in Arcadia made substantial profits before the events that triggered the civil war.
(E) Many Distopians expressed concern over the suffering that Arcadians underwent during the civil war.



according to me the OA is A. Please provide us with the OA...

A because the conclusion says that this cannot be, so inorder to negate that argument, A seems to be a better option...

A is not a good choice. It says the following:
~ if productivity of the facilities in Arcadia doesn't increase, then it's true that Distopian industrialists had no motive to promote their intervention into Arcadia.

Thus, a productivity of the facilities is linked to ensuring the gain of substantial profits. What if not any increase of productivity was required to gain profits? What if the enterprises could bring profits without expanding their productivity levels?

This choice is wrong. The only bleakly "good wrong choice" is E, but again it's too easy to understand that option E is wrong too. I doubt this is any merit bearing GMAT argument question. This question is just *crap* - sorry for the expression, but this is how it is read and solved. No merit, too easy for being GMAT question.

Dear Expert

Please provide OA.

Thanks.

I had a brief look at the question and found that option C somewhere is going wrong as the stimulus specifically talks about the profits generated during the civil war. And that is why the Distopian industries are accused off..

If you can generate the same level of profits after the civil war as well then you have not taken the maximum benefits from the civil war. Hence somewhere you are strengthening the argument.

(C) Most Distopian industrialists' facilities located in Arcadia are expected to maintain the level of profits they achieved during the war.




Hence B would be more appropriate in this case as it talks about profits generated during the civil war at the same time it bifurcates in the fashion that costs are borne by the federal reserve and the profits are generated by the companies. So somewhere the whole distopian system has taken advantage of the civil war... The federal reserve as well as the companies tried to take the advantage....
Hence it should be B.

what is the source of this question....

Experts please help!!!

even i feel the answer is B,

I'm not really too sure about this question in terms of it's validity. I'd be curious to question the original source - "the second sentence above" vs. "the conclusion above" strikes me as kind of suspect.

Still, even if this question is faulty, by putting on our GMAT critical reasoning caps and doing our best to dissect said faultiness, we are getting some use out of it (meaning the question is not as woeful as some other "GMAT" questions I've encountered - despite PEMDA's pithy observation).

So I will address the two answers that most people debated, and I will hope to sure why one is better than the other, though a small part of me wonders whether this is what the publishers intended.

(B) The war was not mostly funded not by the industrialists but by another source - let's say the distopian government. (it does say "federal expenses" after all). The industrialists still made 4 billion. Wow, that's a pretty sweet deal. The government pays, say 5 billion for the war (a majority means greater than half, so greater than 4 bil.), and, meanwhile, the industrialists are cranking away at the Arcadia factory, making 4 bil.
Even if they had to pay 3 bil. they still made a bil.

Hmm...that exposes a pretty serious flaw in the argument - industrialists clearly had a motive, because they ended up making money because the government largely paid for the war.

(My Answer: B)

(C) Sounds good - the industrialists are making out in the long run...so aha! they had a profit motive all along. But wait...the argument says that the industrialists wanted to profit during the war. I think the problem here - and why this is alluring - is because of the word 'profit'. If the argument said was the industrialist wanted to profit as a result of the war, this answer choice would be valid.

However, I wonder if this is what the original publishers intended. Perhaps C is the attributed OA because the publisher reasoned that (C) gives a clear profit motive, thereby exposing the flaw in the argument. Were they even thinking about the during vs. after? A part of me really wonders...

Anyhow, I'd love to know the original source and the OA.

I just reread this thread and realize that I totally missed that the OA was supposed to be A .

My apologies .

That said, wow, this is a bad question. Productivity and profitability are very different. Sure, the factories churned out more stuff, but at a loss or gain?

This question is best ignored.

Does anyone know the original source?

I was actually confused between B and C. and here is a wonderful explananation from another resource by MBAfalll2004

https://www.urch.com/forums/gmat-critica ... cused.html