Critical Reasoning

The management of a magazine recently divided its staff of writers into two groups based on whether the writers took more than six breaks daily. A higher percentage of those writers who took more than six breaks a day had problems producing article ideas than did the writers who took six breaks or fewer. The management of the magazine concluded that taking more than six breaks per day causes writers to be less productive.

Which of the following, if true, most seriously weakens the conclusion above?

(A) The writers who took more than six breaks daily produced, on average, more articles than did the other writers who took less than six breaks daily.

(B) Some of the writers who took fewer than six breaks daily produced large numbers of article ideas.

(C) A diminished output of article ideas was the reason that some of the writers who took fewer than six breaks daily lowered the amount of breaks that they took per day.

(D) Some writers took breaks of only one minute each, while other writers took breaks of up to twenty minutes each.

(E) Frustration over the low production of article ideas caused some of the writers already taking more than six breaks a day to take even more frequent breaks.

OA Later

IMO C

IMO --C .. For me too,,

Was confused between A and C

Options C and E are close.

A states about articles not article ideas.So its out of scope

selango wrote:Options C and E are close.

A states about articles not article ideas.So its out of scope

i think "E" is further strenthening the argument by stating the "writers who are already taking more than 6 breaks are increasing their number of bnreaks further"

I pick A.

Option A looks fine to me.

Oh yes...Then option A and C

But option A deals with only number of articles not article ideas.

Please correct me if I am wrong.

selango wrote:Oh yes...Then option A and C

But option A deals with only number of articles not article ideas.

Please correct me if I am wrong.

Since the conclusion of the argument is that taking more than six breaks per day causes writers to be less productive, one way to weaken this argument is to show that people taking more than 6 breaks are more productive than people taking less than 6 breaks. If measure of productivity is number of articles written in one day, then option A weakens the argument in the passage.

I agree, what is the actual measure of productivity (the number of ideas OR the number of articles written) is nowhere mentioned. But compared to other options, A looks better to me.

OA ia A.

But I selected E with following reasoning.

A -> " The writers who took more than six breaks daily produced, on average, more articles"
looking as directly contradicting the premise - " A higher percentage of those writers who took more than six breaks a day had problems producing article ideas than did the writers who took six breaks or fewer"

A weaken choice should not directly contradict the premise.


E : is saying that frustration because of low articles (B) ------> more breaks (A)
while argument is saying that more breaks (A) ----> low articles ( B )

Hence by causal relationship, E is weakning the argument.

Please share your thoughts on my reasoning.

Shawshank wrote:IMO --C .. For me too,,

Was confused between A and C

Shawshank bhai,

we know there are 2 groups say A1 & A2

A2: writers who takes less than 6 breaks daily.

C talks more about A2. It no where discuss about A1.(reject C)

Our answer should try to relate A1 & A2 !!

A is a plain causal reversal types!! Pick A

paes wrote:OA ia A.

But I selected E with following reasoning.

A -> " The writers who took more than six breaks daily produced, on average, more articles"
looking as directly contradicting the premise - " A higher percentage of those writers who took more than six breaks a day had problems producing article ideas than did the writers who took six breaks or fewer"

A weaken choice should not directly contradict the premise.

E : is saying that frustration because of low articles (B) ------> more breaks (A)
while argument is saying that more breaks (A) ----> low articles ( B )

Hence by causal relationship, E is weakning the argument.

Please share your thoughts on my reasoning.

If option E would have been - Frustration over the low production of article ideas caused some of the writers to take more than 6 breaks - then I would have selected E since it is showing that the cause of less productivity is frustration not more breaks.

But since E is talking about people who are already taking more 6 breaks, I don't think it fits as a right answer here. Here more than 6 breaks could be the cause of both less productivity and frustration.

Hope that helps..

Oh..... my fault.

I read E as :

The people taking 6 breaks ...........

misses the word 'more than'

thanks.