GMAT Set 2

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GMAT Set 2

by Abhijit K » Sat Mar 07, 2015 9:09 pm
Newspaper editorial: In an attempt to reduce the crime rate, the governor is getting tough on criminals and making prison conditions harsher. Part of this effort has been to deny inmates the access they formerly had to college-level courses. However, this action is clearly counter to the governor's ultimate goal, since after being released form prison, inmates who had taken such courses committed far fewer crimes overall than other inmates. Which of the following is an assumption on which the argument depends?

A. Not being able to take college-level courses while in prison is unlikely to deter anyone from a crime that he or she might otherwise have committed.
B. Former inmates are no more likely to commit crimes than are members of the general population.
C. The group of inmates who chose to take college-level courses were not already less likely than other inmates to commit crimes after being released.
D. Taking high school level courses in prison has less effect on an inmate's subsequent behavior than taking college-level courses does.
E. The governor's ultimate goal actually is to gain popularity by convincing people that something effective is being done about crime.

C or A??

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by MartyMurray » Sun Mar 08, 2015 6:03 am
Abhijit K wrote:Newspaper editorial: In an attempt to reduce the crime rate, the governor is getting tough on criminals and making prison conditions harsher. Part of this effort has been to deny inmates the access they formerly had to college-level courses. However, this action is clearly counter to the governor's ultimate goal, since after being released from prison, inmates who had taken such courses committed far fewer crimes overall than other inmates. Which of the following is an assumption on which the argument depends?

A. Not being able to take college-level courses while in prison is unlikely to deter anyone from a crime that he or she might otherwise have committed.
B. Former inmates are no more likely to commit crimes than are members of the general population.
C. The group of inmates who chose to take college-level courses were not already less likely than other inmates to commit crimes after being released.
D. Taking high school level courses in prison has less effect on an inmate's subsequent behavior than taking college-level courses does.
E. The governor's ultimate goal actually is to gain popularity by convincing people that something effective is being done about crime.

C or A??
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by MartyMurray » Sun Mar 08, 2015 6:10 am
Choose C.
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by GMATGuruNY » Mon Mar 09, 2015 6:48 am
Abhijit K wrote:Newspaper editorial: In an attempt to reduce the crime rate, the governor is getting tough on criminals and making prison conditions harsher. Part of this effort has been to deny inmates the access they formerly had to college-level courses. However, this action is clearly counter to the governor's ultimate goal, since after being released from prison, inmates who had taken such courses committed far fewer crimes overall than other inmates. Which of the following is an assumption on which the argument depends?

A. Not being able to take college-level courses while in prison is unlikely to deter anyone from a crime that he or she might otherwise have committed.
B. Former inmates are no more likely to commit crimes than are members of the general population.
C. The group of inmates who chose to take college-level courses were not already less likely than other inmates to commit crimes after being released.
D. Taking high school level courses in prison has less effect on an inmate's subsequent behavior than taking college-level courses does.
E. The governor's ultimate goal actually is to gain popularity by convincing people that something effective is being done about crime.
Governor's goal: To reduce the crime rate.
Governor's action: To deny inmates access to college-level courses.
Conclusion of the passage: The governor's action is counter to his goal of reducing crime.

Conclusion, rephrased:
To reduce the crime rate, the governor should ALLOW inmates access to college-level courses.

The assumption is WHAT MUST BE TRUE for the conclusion to be valid.
Apply the NEGATION TEST.
When the correct answer choices is negated, the conclusion will be invalidated.

Answer choice C, negated:
The group of inmates who chose to take college-level courses were ALREADY less likely than other inmates to commit crimes after being released.
Here, the college-level courses are rendered irrelevant: even without these courses, the enrolled inmates were ALREADY less likely to commit crimes.
Since the negation of C invalidates the conclusion that the governor should allow access to college-level courses, C is the assumption: WHAT MUST BE TRUE for the conclusion to be valid.

The correct answer is C.

Note the following:
The negation of none is AT LEAST ONE.
If we negate A, we get:
Not being able to take college-level courses while in prison is likely to deter AT LEAST ONE PERSON from a crime that he or she might otherwise have committed.
The negation of A indicates that denying inmates access to college-level courses might deter ONLY ONE ONE PERSON from committing a crime, STRENGTHENING the conclusion that the governor should allow inmates access to college-level courses.
Since the negation of A does not invalidate the conclusion, eliminate A.
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by prachi18oct » Tue Mar 10, 2015 10:17 am
The negation of none is AT LEAST ONE.
If we negate A, we get:
Not being able to take college-level courses while in prison is likely to deter AT LEAST ONE PERSON from a crime that he or she might otherwise have committed.
Hi GMATGuruNY
Can we substitute anyone with none here??
what will be the least negation for someone, somebody, nobody, everyone, everybody etc ?
Can you please explain with examples?

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by GMATGuruNY » Wed Mar 11, 2015 1:04 pm
prachi18oct wrote:Hi GMATGuruNY
Can we substitute anyone with none here??
not any means NONE.
Thus:
NOT LIKELY to deter ANYONE means LIKELY to deter NO ONE.

Answer choice A, rephrased:
Not being able to take college-level courses is LIKELY TO DETER NO ONE.

The opposite of no one is NOT NO ONE, which means AT LEAST ONE PERSON.
Thus, when A is negated, we get:
Not being able to take college-level courses is likely to deter AT LEAST ONE PERSON.
what will be the least negation for someone, somebody, nobody, everyone, everybody etc ?
The opposite of someone is NO ONE.
The opposite of somebody is NOBODY.
The opposite of nobody is SOMEBODY, which means AT LEAST ONE PERSON.
The opposite of everyone is NOT EVERYONE.
The opposite of everybody is NOT EVERYBODY.

Statement: Some people attended the class.
Negation: NO ONE attended the class.

Statement: Every student attended the class.
Negation: NOT EVERY STUDENT attended the class.
Alternate negation: AT LEAST ONE STUDENT did NOT attend the class.

Statement: No one attended the class.
Negation: AT LEAST ONE PERSON attended the class.
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by kutlee » Sun Mar 29, 2015 10:31 pm
i think we should attack the experiment part of the argument - 'the group that underwent the college course did not commit crime'. The only choice that deals with this is C.

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by richachampion » Sun Apr 30, 2017 6:29 pm
GMATGuruNY wrote:Note the following:
The negation of none is AT LEAST ONE.
If we negate A, we get:
Not being able to take college-level courses while in prison is likely to deter AT LEAST ONE PERSON from a crime that he or she might otherwise have committed.
this negation test is very confusing. You are negating Unlikely to likely and then anyone to atleast one.
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by GMATGuruNY » Tue May 09, 2017 3:27 am
richachampion wrote:
GMATGuruNY wrote:Note the following:
The negation of none is AT LEAST ONE.
If we negate A, we get:
Not being able to take college-level courses while in prison is likely to deter AT LEAST ONE PERSON from a crime that he or she might otherwise have committed.
this negation test is very confusing. You are negating Unlikely to likely and then anyone to atleast one.
anyone = even one person.

Example:
The party WAS NOT ATTENDED BY ANYONE.
Conveyed meaning:
The party WAS NOT ATTENDED BY EVEN ONE PERSON.
In other words:
The party WAS ATTENDED BY NO ONE.
The statement in blue, negated:
The party WAS ATTENDED BY AT LEAST ONE PERSON.

In A, if we replace anyone with EVEN ONE PERSON, we get:
Not being able to take college-level courses is UNLIKELY TO DETER EVEN ONE PERSON.
In other words:
Not being able to take college-level courses is LIKELY TO DETER NO ONE.
The statement in blue, negated:
Not being able to take college-level courses is LIKELY TO DETER AT LEAST ONE PERSON.
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by Mo2men » Tue May 09, 2017 11:17 am
GMATGuruNY wrote:
Abhijit K wrote:Newspaper editorial: In an attempt to reduce the crime rate, the governor is getting tough on criminals and making prison conditions harsher. Part of this effort has been to deny inmates the access they formerly had to college-level courses. However, this action is clearly counter to the governor's ultimate goal, since after being released from prison, inmates who had taken such courses committed far fewer crimes overall than other inmates. Which of the following is an assumption on which the argument depends?

A. Not being able to take college-level courses while in prison is unlikely to deter anyone from a crime that he or she might otherwise have committed.
Dear Mitch,

Is it allowable to eliminate choice A without negation? How could we do it?

Thanks

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by GMATGuruNY » Fri May 12, 2017 12:25 pm
Mo2men wrote:Dear Mitch,

Is it allowable to eliminate choice A without negation? How could we do it?

Thanks
An assumption is a statement that MUST BE TRUE for the conclusion to hold.
Option A implies the following:
To conclude that the governor's plan will not work, it must be true that his plan is unlikely to deter ANY criminals.
Too extreme.
Even if the governor's plan deters a few criminals, the argument can still conclude that his plan will not reduce the overall crime rate.
Since A is not a statement that must be true, eliminate A.
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by RBBmba@2014 » Wed Jun 07, 2017 3:29 am
GMATGuruNY wrote:The negation of A indicates that denying inmates access to college-level courses might deter ONLY ONE ONE PERSON from committing a crime, STRENGTHENING the conclusion that the governor should allow inmates access to college-level courses.
Since the negation of A does not invalidate the conclusion, eliminate A.
GMATGuruNY wrote:An assumption is a statement that MUST BE TRUE for the conclusion to hold.
Option A implies the following:
To conclude that the governor's plan will not work, it must be true that his plan is unlikely to deter ANY criminals.
Too extreme.
Even if the governor's plan deters a few criminals, the argument can still conclude that his plan will not reduce the overall crime rate.
Since A is not a statement that must be true, eliminate A.
Hi GMATGuruNY,
With reference to your above two quotes, I understand what should be the NEGATION of Option A. But need a quick confirmation on my understanding of how NEGATION of Option A actually STRENGTHENS the CONCLUSION: you're essentially saying that even if the governor's plan deters ONLY ONE ONE PERSON (or even a few PERSONS) from committing a crime, then also the overall crime rate will NOT be reduced!
But how is that LOGICALLY possible ? Please clarify.

P.S: Btw, we can say that Option A is a potential STRENGTHENER. Right ?

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by GMATGuruNY » Fri Jun 09, 2017 3:22 pm
RBBmba@2014 wrote:Hi GMATGuruNY,
With reference to your above two quotes, I understand what should be the NEGATION of Option A. But need a quick confirmation on my understanding of how NEGATION of Option A actually STRENGTHENS the CONCLUSION: you're essentially saying that even if the governor's plan deters ONLY ONE ONE PERSON (or even a few PERSONS) from committing a crime, then also the overall crime rate will NOT be reduced!
But how is that LOGICALLY possible ? Please clarify.
A, negated:
Not being able to take college-level courses is LIKELY TO DETER AT LEAST ONE PERSON.

Case 1: Exactly one person is deterred from committing a crime
Here, the reduction in the crime rate will be negligible: the difference between 1000 crimes per 1,000,000 people and 999 crimes per 1,000,000 people is statistically insignificant.
In this case, the governor's plan will NOT succeed in making a noticeable difference in the crime rate, STRENGTHENING the conclusion that the plan runs counter to the governor's goal.

Case 2: Many people are deterred from committing crimes
Here, the reduction in the crime rate could be quite large: the difference between 1000 crimes per 1,000,000 people and 500 crimes per 1,000,000 people is statistically significant.
In this case, the governor's plan WILL succeed in making a noticeable difference in the crime rate, WEAKENING the conclusion that the plan runs counter to the governor's goal.

Since the negation of A is not guaranteed to invalidate the conclusion, A is not a statement that must be true for the conclusion to hold.
Thus, A is not an assumption.
Eliminate A.
P.S: Btw, we can say that Option A is a potential STRENGTHENER. Right ?
Sure -- especially since its negation could weaken the conclusion, as illustrated by Case 2 above.
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