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Press Secretary:

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fangtray Really wants to Beat The GMAT! Default Avatar
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Press Secretary: Post Fri May 04, 2012 8:34 am
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  • Lap #[LAPCOUNT] ([LAPTIME])
    Press Secretary: Our critics claim that the president's recent highway project cancellations demonstrate a vindictive desire to punish legislative districts controlled by opposition parties. They offer as evidence the fact that 90 percent of the projects canceled were in such districts. But all of the canceled projects had been identified as wasteful in a report written by respected nonpartisan auditors. So the president's choice was clearly motivated by sound budgetary policy, not partisan politics.

    Which of the following is an assumption on which the press secretary's argument depends?

    a. Canceling highway projects was not the only way for the president to punish legislative districts controlled by opposition parties.

    b. The scheduled highway projects identified as wasteful in the report were not mostly projects in districts controlled by the president's party.

    c. the number of projects canceled was a significant proportion of all the high way projects that were to be undertaken by the government in the near future.

    d. The highway projects canceled in districts controlled by the president's party were not generally more expensive than the projects canceled in districts controlled by opposition parties.

    e. Reports by nonpartisan auditors are not generally regarded byt the opposition parties as a source of objective assessments of government projects.

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    rajcools Rising GMAT Star Default Avatar
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    Post Fri May 04, 2012 9:03 am
    IMO B

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    Post Fri May 04, 2012 9:19 am
    I'd go with (D) on this one.


    What's the source and OA?

    vk_vinayak GMAT Destroyer!
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    Post Fri May 04, 2012 10:30 am
    IMO E.

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    fangtray Really wants to Beat The GMAT! Default Avatar
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    Post Fri May 04, 2012 4:02 pm
    OA is B. this is from GMAC, so its right. I just don't know why. It seems B is the opposite of what we want. I chose E also.

    ice_rush GMAT Destroyer! Default Avatar
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    Post Fri May 04, 2012 10:13 pm
    hmm..is this question from gmat prep test? I sort of see what choice (B) is doing but the conclusion is about sound budgetary policy... Need an expert's opinion here.

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    Post Sat May 05, 2012 5:00 am
    It's not E -- E states that nonpartisan reports are not regarded by opposition parties as objective, and the press secretary is offering up a nonpartisan report as an example of how objective the president is being.

    --

    B, on the other hand, is essential to the press secretary's argument.

    Here's what we know:
    - The president is canceling highway project
    - 90% of those canceled projects are in opposing parties' districts
    - A nonpartisan (neutral) report shows which projects are wasteful
    - All of the canceled projects were listed in that report

    Here's what we don't know:
    - Whether there are more projects listed in the report that were not canceled.

    So, if the report shows 100 wasteful projects, 90 of which are in the opposing parties' districts and 10 of which are in the president's districts, and the president canceled all of them, then that is probably legit. The president isn't trying to hate on the opposing parties, they're just trying to keep it real (and not wasteful) -- not their fault that the opposing parties' districts' highway projects suck!

    But if the report shows 100 wasteful projects, 90 of which are in the president's district and 10 of which are in the opposing parties' districts, and the president canceled...10 of them, 1 from his/her district and 9 from the opposing parties' districts...that is probably not legit. Sketchball!

    Probably not.

    So B -- which states that the wasteful projects identified in the report were not mostly projects in districts controlled by the president's party -- is necessary for the press secretary's argument.

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    Post Sat May 05, 2012 5:04 am
    fangtray wrote:
    Press Secretary: Our critics claim that the president's recent highway project cancellations demonstrate a vindictive desire to punish legislative districts controlled by opposition parties. They offer as evidence the fact that 90 percent of the projects canceled were in such districts. But all of the canceled projects had been identified as wasteful in a report written by respected nonpartisan auditors. So the president's choice was clearly motivated by sound budgetary policy, not partisan politics.

    Which of the following is an assumption on which the press secretary's argument depends?

    a. Canceling highway projects was not the only way for the president to punish legislative districts controlled by opposition parties.

    b. The scheduled highway projects identified as wasteful in the report were not mostly projects in districts controlled by the president's party.

    c. the number of projects canceled was a significant proportion of all the high way projects that were to be undertaken by the government in the near future.

    d. The highway projects canceled in districts controlled by the president's party were not generally more expensive than the projects canceled in districts controlled by opposition parties.

    e. Reports by nonpartisan auditors are not generally regarded byt the opposition parties as a source of objective assessments of government projects.
    When STATISTICS are offered as evidence, the assumption is that there is ONLY ONE WAY to interpret the statistics.

    Answer choice B, negated: The scheduled highway projects identified as wasteful in the report were MOSTLY projects in districts controlled by the president's party.

    Let the number of projects identified as wasteful = 100.
    The negation of B states that MOST of these projects were in districts controlled by the president's party.
    Of these 100 wasteful projects:
    Let the number in districts controlled by the president's party = 90.
    Let the number in districts controlled by the opposition party = 10.

    Let the number of cancelled projects = 10.
    Since 90% of these projects were in districts controlled by the opposition party:
    The number of projects cancelled in opposition districts = 9.
    The number of projects cancelled in the president's districts = 1.

    Thus:
    Of the number of wasteful projects in the president's districts, 1/90 were cancelled.
    Of the number of wasteful projects in opposition districts, 9/10 were cancelled.
    These figures imply a bias AGAINST the opposition party, weakening the conclusion that the president's choices were not motivated by partisan politics.

    Since the negation of B trashes the conclusion that the president's choices were not motivated by partisan politics, B is the necessary assumption: WHAT MUST BE TRUE in the order for the conclusion to be valid.

    The correct answer is B.

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    Post Sat May 05, 2012 2:17 pm
    I received a PM asking me to respond. I actually wrote this in a different thread yesterday, and my explanation was very similar to Mitch's

    Quote:
    A--other means of punishment are irrelevant.

    B--We know that all of the canceled projects were identified as wasteful, but we don't know how many total projects (including ones that weren't canceled) were identified as wasteful. Say there were a total of 50 projects identified as wasteful. If 10 were in the opposition districts and 40 were in the friendly districts, then the fact that 90% of canceled projects were in the opposition districts could lend evidence to the accusations of punishment.

    C--total number of projects is irrelevant

    D--Project cost is not mentioned

    E--this weakens the conclusion

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    Post Sat May 05, 2012 11:25 pm
    [quote]When STATISTICS are offered as evidence, the assumption is that there is ONLY ONE WAY to interpret the statistics. [/quote]

    Mitch, Please elaborate it as I always get wrong on Statistics CR questions.

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