David: Since attempting to preserve every species that is currently endangered is prohibitively expensive, the endangered species whose value to humanity is the greatest should be accorded the highest priority for preservation.
Karen: Such a policy would be unsound because it is impossible to predict the future value of a species, nor is it always possible to assess the present value of species whose contributions to humanity, though significant, are indirect.
Which of the following is the main point of Karen's reply to David?
Karen: Such a policy would be unsound because it is impossible to predict the future value of a species, nor is it always possible to assess the present value of species whose contributions to humanity, though significant, are indirect.
Which of the following is the main point of Karen's reply to David?
Show Hint
- Although it would be desirable to preserve all endangered species, doing so is not economically feasible.
- Even if the value to humanity of a given species is known, that value should not be a factor in any decision on whether to expend effort to preserve that species.
- Species whose contributions to humanity are direct should have a higher priority for preservation efforts than species whose contributions to humanity are only indirect.
- Since the methods for deciding which species have the most value to humanity are imperfect, informed decisions cannot be made on the basis of the assessment of such value.
- The preservation of endangered species whose value to humanity can be reliably predicted is more important than the preservation of species whose value for humanity is unpredictable.
The Correct Option is D
Solution and Explanation
This question asks for the main point of Karen's argument. David proposes a policy: prioritize species for preservation based on their value to humanity. Karen disagrees, calling the policy "unsound." Her entire argument is focused on explaining why it is unsound. We need to find the option that best summarizes her reasoning.
Step 2: Detailed Explanation:
Karen's argument has two main parts, both of which attack the feasibility of implementing David's policy:
1. It's "impossible to predict the future value of a species."
2. It's "not always possible to assess the present value" of species with indirect contributions.
The common theme is that the central criterion of David's policy—"value to humanity"—is fundamentally difficult or impossible to measure accurately. Therefore, any policy based on this measurement is flawed.
Now let's evaluate the options:
- (A) This is David's premise, which Karen accepts. It is not the main point of her reply.
- (B) Karen's argument is that the value cannot be known, not that it shouldn't be used if it were known. This statement is too extreme and misrepresents her point.
- (C) This suggests a prioritization scheme, which is what David does. Karen argues against such schemes by pointing out the difficulty of assessing value, including indirect value. She doesn't endorse prioritizing direct value.
- (D) This option accurately summarizes Karen's position. It states that the "methods for deciding" on value are "imperfect" (a fair summary of "impossible to predict" and "not always possible to assess"). Because of this imperfection, "informed decisions cannot be made on the basis of the assessment of such value," which is a good paraphrase of her conclusion that the policy is "unsound."
- (E) Karen is not proposing an alternative prioritization scheme. Her point is that predicting value is the problem, making this kind of distinction impossible to apply in practice.
Step 3: Final Answer:
Karen's main point is that David's proposed policy is unworkable because the core concept of "value to humanity" is too difficult to measure accurately, both for the future and the present. Option (D) captures this critique of the method perfectly.
Top Questions on Logical Reasoning
Disregard commonly known facts. Which conclusion would follow on the basis of given statements only?
Statement (I): Some bottles are car. Some cars are cycle.
Conclusion: \[\begin{array}{rl} \bullet & \text{[(I)] Some bottles are cycle is a possibility.} \\ \bullet & \text{[(II)] All bottles are cycle.} \\ \end{array}\]
- CUET (PG) - 2025
- General
- Logical Reasoning
- There are five men - A, B, C, D and E, six women - P, Q, R, S, T and Z, A, B, and R are advocates. S, Q, P, D and C are doctors and the rest are teachers. A team has to be selected from these eleven persons subject to the following conditions: \[\begin{array}{rl} \bullet & \text{[(I)] A, P and Z have to be together.} \\ \bullet & \text{[(II)] B cannot go with D or R.} \\ \bullet & \text{[(III)] E and Q have to be together.} \\ \bullet & \text{[(IV)] C and T have to be together.} \\ \bullet & \text{[(V)] D and P cannot go together.} \\ \bullet & \text{[(VI)] C cannot go with Q.} \\ \end{array}\] If the team formed consists of two male advocates, two lady doctors and one teacher, the members of the team can be:
- CUET (PG) - 2025
- General
- Logical Reasoning
- If a group comprises of five persons A, B, C, D and E, then how many persons are taller than E?
Statement (I): A is taller than B and B is shorter than A and E only.
Statement (II): C is shorter than A and A is shorter than E.- CUET (PG) - 2025
- General Management
- Logical Reasoning
- Eight boxes - A, B, C, D, P, Q, R and S are stacked vertically but not necessarily in the same order. Which among them is kept immediately above R?
Statement (I): Only three boxes are kept above D and only one box is kept between D and Q. Q is kept lower than D and is immediately below P.
Statement (II): Only one box is kept between A and C. C is kept three boxes above Q. As many boxes are kept above B as are kept below R.- CUET (PG) - 2025
- General Management
- Logical Reasoning
- P, Q, R, S, T, A and B are consecutive integers (not necessarily in that order), such that the smallest of these is greater than 60 and the greatest is less than 70. It is known that:
(I) A and B both are prime numbers.
(II) T is a multiple of 9.
(III) Both the digits of P are same.
(IV) The average of R and S is 63 and the difference between R and S is 2.
What is the sum of A and Q if A is smaller than B?- CUET (PG) - 2025
- General Management
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Questions Asked in GRE exam
In early-twentieth-century England, it was fashionable to claim that only a completely new style of writing could address a world undergoing unprecedented transformation — just as one literary critic recently claimed that only the new ”aesthetic of exploratory excess” can address a world undergoing . . . well, you know. Yet in early-twentieth-century England, T. S. Eliot, a man fascinated by the ”presence” of the past, wrote the most innovative poetry of his time. The lesson for today’s literary community seems obvious: a reorientation toward tradition would benefit writers no less than readers. But if our writers and critics indeed respect the novel’s rich tradition (as they claim to), then why do they disdain the urge to tell an exciting story?
- GRE - 2024
- Reading Comprehension
In the 1970’s, two debates engaged many scholars of early United States history. One focused on the status of women, primarily White women. Turning on the so-called golden age the ory, which posited that during the eighteenth-century colonial era, American women enjoyed a brief period of high status relative to their English contemporaries and to nineteenth-century American women, this debate pitted scholars who believed women’s lives deteriorated after 1800 against those who thought women’s lives had been no better before 1800. At issue were the causes of women’s subordination: were these causes already in place when the English first settled North America or did they emerge with the rise of nineteenth-century industrial capital ism? The second debate, the so-called origins debate, concerned the emergence of racial slavery in the southern colonies: was slavery the inevitable result of the deep-rooted racial prejudice of early British colonists or did racial prejudice arise only after these planters instituted slave labor?
Although these debates are parallel in some respects, key differences distinguished them. Whereas the debate over women’s status revolved around implicit comparisons of colonial women to their counterparts in the antebellum period (1800-1860), thus inviting comment from scholars of both historical periods, the origins debate was primarily confined to a discussion about slavery in colonial America. Second, in contrast to the newness of the debate over women’s status and its continued currency throughout the early 1980’s, the debate over race and slavery, begun in the 1950’s, had lost some of its urgency with the publication of Morgan’s American Slavery, American Freedom (1975), widely regarded as the last word on the subject. Each debate also assumed a different relationship to the groups whose histories it concerned. In its heyday, the origins debate focused mainly on White attitudes toward Africans rather than on Africans themselves. With few exceptions, such as Wood’s Black Majority (1974) and Mullin’s Flight and Rebellion (1972), which were centrally concerned with enslaved African men, most works pertaining to the origins debate focused on the White architects, mostly male, of racial slavery. In contrast, although women’s historians were interested in the institutions and ide ologies contributing to women’s subordination, they were equally concerned with documenting women’s experiences. As in the origins debate, however, early scholarship on colonial women defined its historical constituency narrowly, women’s historians focusing mainly on affluent White women.
Over time, however, some initial differences between the approaches taken by scholars in the two fields faded. In the 1980’s, historians of race and slavery in colonial America shifted their attention to enslaved people; interest in African American culture grew, thereby bringing en slaved women more prominently into view. Historians of early American women moved in similar directions during the decade and began to consider the effect of racial difference on women’s experience.- GRE - 2024
- Reading Comprehension
The most plausible justification for higher taxes on automobile fuel is that fuel consumption harms the environment and thus adds to the costs of traffic congestion. But the fact that burning fuel creates these ”negative externalities” does not imply that no tax on fuel could ever be too high. Economics is precise about the tax that should, in principle, be levied to deal with negative externalities: the tax on a liter of fuel should be equal to the harm caused by using a liter of fuel. If the tax is more than that, its costs (including the inconvenience to those who would rather have used their cars) will exceed its benefits (including any reduction in congestion and pollution).
- GRE - 2024
- Reading Comprehension
Objectively, of course, the various ecosystems that sustain life on the planet proceed independently of human agency, just as they operated before the hectic ascendancy of Homo sapiens. But it is also true that it is difficult to think of a single such system that has not, for better or worse, been substantially modified by human culture. Nor is this simply the work of the industrial centuries. It has been happening since the days of ancient Mesopotamia. It is coeval with the origins of writing, and has occurred throughout our social existence. And it is this irreversibly modified world, from the polar caps to the equatorial forests, that is all the nature we have.
- GRE - 2024
- Reading Comprehension
Music critics have consistently defined James P. Johnson as a great early jazz pianist, originator of the 1920’s Harlem ”stride” style, and an important blues and jazz composer. In addition, however, Johnson was an innovator in classical music, composing symphonic music that incor porated American, and especially African American, traditions.
Such a blend of musical elements was not entirely new: by 1924 both Milhaud and Gershwin had composed classical works that incorporated elements of jazz. Johnson, a serious musician more experienced than most classical composers with jazz, blues, spirituals, and popular music, was particularly suited to expand Milhaud’s and Gershwin’s experiments. In 1927 he completed his first large-scale work, the blues- and jazz-inspired Yamekraw, which included borrowings from spirituals and Johnson’s own popular songs. Yamekraw, premiered successfully in Carnegie Hall, was a major achievement for Johnson, becoming his most frequently performed extended work. It demonstrated vividly the possibility of assimilating contemporary popular music into the symphonic tradition.- GRE - 2024
- Reading Comprehension