medium · GMAT Verbal
Conservationist: Reintroducing beavers is the cheapest way to cut downstream flooding, since their dams slow runoff. True, **a beaver dam can occasionally fail and release a damaging surge**, but engineered flood barriers fail too, at far greater cost. So **the dam-failure risk is no reason to favor engineered barriers over beavers.**
In the argument, the two boldface portions play which roles?
- The first is an objection the argument rebuts; the second is the conclusion that objection fails to undermine.
- The first is the argument's principal conclusion; the second is merely a premise offered in its support.
- The first states the argument's central organizing principle, which the second then applies to a single case.
- The first is direct evidence offered for the conclusion; the second merely restates that same evidence more forcefully.
- Both function as intermediate conclusions marshaled jointly to support a further claim the argument leaves unstated here.
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