GMATPrep CR. The town of Enderton

[tanyatomar]

i dint find this question in search so posting this one.


The town of Enderton is located in an area where forest fires are quite common. During dry periods and periods of persistent winds, when even a spark can result in a fire that spreads over many acres, the danger of fire there is particularly serious. To help prevent forest fires in the area, the town government plans to post a ban on outdoor fires when such conditions prevail.


Which of the following, if true, provides the strongest indication that the town’s plan will have at most a minor effect on the annual number of forest fires in the Enderton area?


A. Most of the tourists who visit the forests surrounding Enderton also visit Enderton itself.

B. Although there are county fire fighters available to combat forest fires in the area, Enderton itself has no professional fire fighters.

C. Very few forest fires in the Enderton area result from fires deliberately set by arsonists.

D. Nearly all forest fires in the Enderton area are the result of lightning strikes.

E. The number of forest fires in the Enderton area has not increased significantly in
the last several years.

OA: D

i chose B.

i did not understand what is meant by "atmost a minor effect". does this means that we want to prove that plan will not have any significant effect.. and we have to weaken the idea that plan will have some effect....

please explain.

[bhupi_1986]

Not an expert but still give my best to explain argument :

Indeed one of weirdest language of question stem.

atmost a minor effect , It means, we need to pick answer choice that shows government efforts (at maximum level of success)will add slight or nothing to prevent forest fires.


Here goes analysis of answer choices:

a) How tourists visit relate to outdoor or forest fires (way out of scope).

b) government wants to prevent fires so looking for ways to prevent forest fires not looking for fire fighters to combat it or in other words this is something government would already know. (again out of scope).

c) Well, this choice would have lured some if not understood properly...It's is saying few forest fires result from fires deliberately or intentionally set by people...What about most forest fires ?...do these take place because of human activities or any natural calamity. (not a strong contender).

d) Correct Answer : It says almost all fires are the result of natural calamity. so if this is the case then government efforts would not pay off because obviously government can not control this phenomenon of nature.

e) absolutely irrelevant...Number of fires does not fires does not matter...point it whether government can prevent it or not.

Remember : In Strengthen / weakens questions, we will seek information that will be slightly out of scope but not way too much as is the case with first two choices....Purpose is not to kill argument just weakens enough so that it can not hold true any longer. Also, avoid picking up choices in which you need to make extreme assumptions as would be the case in choice C.

I hope that helps.

[jnelson0612]

Yes, I agree. We want to show that the plan to prevent forest fires by banning open fires will NOT work to any helpful degree. Well, to devise this plan the government must have assumed that open fires are the cause of many/most of the fires. We can attack this assumption in the correct answer, D. D shows that even if we ban the open fires there will be minimal effect on forest fires, because almost all forest fires are started by lightning strikes rather than by open fires.

[siddharthasylloge]

OPTION C :A bait

WELL, this is not a strong contender. The statement has information only about arsonists, people who commit arson. This statement does not tell anything about the majority.

[RonPurewal]

OPTION C :A bait

WELL, this is not a strong contender. The statement has information only about arsonists, people who commit arson. This statement does not tell anything about the majority.

i think i'm missing the point of this post.
• do you have a question?
• or are you replying to something else here?

please clarify, thanks.