GMAT Critical Reasoning
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Source: PREP
Level: 3
To prevent harbor porpoises from getting tangled in its nets and suffocating, a fishing company installed acoustic alarms on all its boats that fish in waters off Massachusetts. The sound emitted temporarily disorients the porpoises and frightens them away. Since the installation of the alarms, the average number of porpoises caught in the company's nets has dropped from eight to one per month. The alarms, therefore, are saving the lives of harbor porpoises in those waters.
Which of the following is an assumption on which the argument depends?
- A The use of acoustic alarms increases the number of commercial fish caught by the fishing company's boats.
- B When disoriented, harbor porpoises are not significantly more likely to be killed by other boats.
- C Environmentalists advocate the use of acoustic alarms as a means of protecting the harbor porpoise population.
- D The alarms were installed at the time of year when harbor porpoises are most plentiful in the Massachusetts waters.
- E The cost of installing acoustic alarms on fishing boats is less than the cost of repairing nets damaged by harbor porpoises.