Critical Reasoning

Economist: One year ago, 64% of consumers said that their spending and saving habits had been "forever altered" by the recent recession. This year only 51% of consumers agreed with that same statement, so it is clear that a number of consumers have a poor understanding of the term "forever".

Which of the following, if true, would NOT weaken the economist's argument?

A)The consumers polled this year and last year do not represent identical segments of the population.

B)There were different recessions before last year's poll and this year's.

C)One may further alter one's views without compromising an initial alteration.

D)Many of the consumers received a generous government stimulus this year.

E)Many of the consumers polled were pressured to answer no to this year's poll by their employers.


I chose A. OA D. I thought more people coming to city would misrepresnt the people and hence this would misrepresent the people who would still stick to thee same answer.,

src_saurav, what you said is correct in a way. If the second survey was conducted using a group of people different or at least somewhat different from that used in conducting the first survey, then it could be that the people who participated in the first survey would still answer the same way if they were asked again now. So the results of the second survey would not really indicate that there was a change in the opinions of the people who participated in the first survey.

The thing is, though, that that would weaken the economist's conclusion, which was based on the idea that the opinions of the original group had changed.

Therefore, since the question asks which would NOT weaken the economist's argument, A does work.

The most important thing to keep in mind here is the term "forever".
We need to find an answer that supports the theory or that is out of the scope of discussion.

Option A implies that the pool of consumers is not identical. This directs us to the conclusion that the understanding of the term forever is not correct. So, this weakens the argument. Not what we are looking for.

Option D says that many consumers received govt, stimulus and this have changed their response in the polls. This directly strengthens our conclusion that the understanding of the term "forever" is not correct.

So the correct answer is D

clearly A,B,C,E options are similar.

Answer is D. Govt. stimulus will not impact one's opinion on recession.