Critical Reasoning

B reconciles

Such a nice problem, but spoiled by offering simple answer choice. B wins.The other answer choices are too easy to eliminate.

I was doing some research for an article that I will be posting soon on Critical Reasoning and I found an official question that is similar to this one. The correct answer on that official question is just as straight-forward as the answer to this question, if not more so. It is what I call a "self-proving" answer. The incorrect answers on that problem are just as easy to eliminate.

So where is this official question that is so similar to this "question that is spoiled by being too simple?" Why it is only 7/8ths of the way to the back of the OG Verbal Review 2nd edition. In other words, this is a question that is in the top 1/4 of difficulty (it is not useful to try to be more specific). I also found examples of LSAT questions that are considered quite difficult that are very similar as well.

Interesting how on Critical Reasoning once you understand the problem they all can seem "simple."

answer = B

explanations are already given

On average, plowed land erodes away at slightly more than 1 millimeter per year, while new soil builds up at about 0.2 millimeters per year. As a result, continually cultivated soil will become exhausted in the space of several hundred years,
unless no-till agriculture is practiced. No-till agriculture is a method in which crop stubble remains in place and a special drill inserts the seeds into the soil. However, only about 16 percent of cultivated areas in the United States use this method.

Which of the following is best supported by the information above?

(A) Although the advance of farming technology has made no-till agriculture available to wealthy farmers, such methods are financially impractical for many American farmers.
(B) If the United States does not utilize means that replenish or reuse exhausted soil, it must eventually ! nd other ways of getting agricultural products.
(C) Agricultural industries that do not require plowing - such as dairy or chicken farms - are not affected by topsoil erosion.
(D) If 5 out of 6 of all American farms were to practice no-till agriculture, the United States would produce enough agricultural products to meet domestic demand for several hundred years.
(E) Hydroponic farming (farming without soil) would solve the United States' land erosion problem.




In the above stimulus, No-Till agriculture was just a method to find out ways in stopping soil to get erode.



And so if No-Till agriculture is not going to be practiced then obviously the United States government will have to find other means to stop soil erosion.

This was the inference.

Hope this helped!!!

Hi guys, my answer is D:

As mentioned in the discussion above, A,C and E are out of scope or not supported by the given information. Comparing B and D, we could find that B is also somehow out of scope. Since there is no information about they could have or cultivate other products and also the given information didn't mention about reuse of the soil etc. Let's look at D. According to the passage, there are only 16 percent of farmers are using no-till method, it means we have 84% of farmers who couldn't use such kind of method. So if we reverse the given information, we will come up with the conclusion that in US farmers can use the soil in several hundred years without being scared of loosing the soil to cultivate the plants. Bec. 5 of 6 is almost 84%. My personal opinion, pls correct me if I'm "out of scope" too...! Thanks in advance.

Predictions are almost never correct in an inference type of question. How do we know what will happen in "several hundred years"?

Choice D was designed to be a trap based on the confluence of the 84% and the 5/6ths.

You are not out of scope. This is very much in the scope of the stimulus, it is just that an actual prediction, even "the sun will come up tomorrow" is not a MUST BE TRUE answer. Just because the sun has risen for billions of years does not mean that tomorrow will be another such day...(on the GMAT that is, I am pretty confident that tomorrow will see a sunrise in the real world).

You can read this article as to why choice B is not a prediction. It looks at two similar questions, one LSAT and on official GMAT. https://www.beatthegmat.com/mba/2012/01/ ... -questions

I am fairly confused. I chose E.

If you say D is out of scope, because it doesn't mention what is required to meet domestic demand (and it doesn't, because what if 16% was enough to meet domestic demand, or 50% or 25%...etc), then similiarly, B should be out of scope as well. Why is this a if not Y, then X answer?

For someone who knows nothing about agriculture (and i know less than nothing), where does it suggest in the stimulus that soil is the only means of agricultural products? the "It Must Eventually" part is too strong in my opinion. If there answer said something like: "If the United States does not utilize means that replenish or rejuvenate exhausted soil, then continually cultivated soil will eventually become depleted" then i feel that would be better

WHen i did this problem, i didn't like any of the answer choices, but i chose E because i felt like if the new information (hydroponic farming) were true or actually existed, then the stimulus would support it, but for these Must be true, or inference type questions, I know you can't bring in outside information, i just felt it was the best answer out of 5 bad ones.

Everybody seems to agree that B is the best answer, so where am i going wrong?

Fangtray - I understand your concerns...

I happen to have written on article on just this subject. Please follow this link:

https://www.beatthegmat.com/mba/2012/01/ ... -questions

hope it helps!

b ans choice is perfect

Let it B.

OMG. i chose D after 20 minutes. i am wrong, i am wrong! there are a lot of new words.

Try not to focus on the vocabulary. You do not need to know what "no-till" agriculture is. Nor dairy and chicken farms. You can eliminate the answers mostly for being out of scope or predictions.

Choice A, it is clear that the stimulus never mentions the cost - so out of scope.

Choice C, the stimulus never talks about dairy and chicken farms - out of scope.

Choice D, is a prediction - how do we know what happens in several hundred years.

Choice E, is both a prediction and out of scope - hydroponic farming is not mentioned and it is a prediction to talk about "solving the land erosion problem."


So you see it is not the vocabulary that should be your focus. I have written an article on this type of question. If you want to take look.
https://www.beatthegmat.com/mba/2012/01/ ... -questions

A) "financial impractical": irrelevant
B) Contender
C) "Agricultural industries that do not require plowing": irrelevant
D) "for several hundred years": no way to support this
E) Irrelevant

Choose B