Critical Reasoning

The average hourly wage of television assemblers in Vernland has long been significantly lower than that in neighboring Borodia. Since Borodia dropped all tariffs on Vernlandian televisions three years ago, the number of televisions sold annually in Borodia has not changed. However, recent statistics show a droip in the number of television assemblers in Borodia. Therefore, updated trade statistics will probably indicate that the number of televisions Borodia imports annually from Vernland has increased.

Which of the following is an assumption on which the argument depends?

A. The number of television assemblers in Vernland has increased by at least as much as the number of television assemblers in Borodia has decreased.
B. Televisions assembled in Vernland have features that televisions assembled in Borodia do not have.
C. The average number of hours it takes a Borodian television assembler to assemble a television has not decreased significantly during the past three years.
D. The number of televisions assembled annually in Vernland has increased significantly during the past three years.
E. The difference between the hourly wage of television assemblers in Vernland and the hourly wage of television assemblers in Borodia is likely to decrease in the next few year

Can someone please explain this

OA is C

Maybe 0.1 percent of test takers can reach this Answer in test. I know the answer and still i can not justify it ! Bah !

mohit11 wrote:The average hourly wage of television assemblers in Vernland has long been significantly lower than that in neighboring Borodia. Since Borodia dropped all tariffs on Vernlandian televisions three years ago, the number of televisions sold annually in Borodia has not changed. However, recent statistics show a droip in the number of television assemblers in Borodia. Therefore, updated trade statistics will probably indicate that the number of televisions Borodia imports annually from Vernland has increased.

Which of the following is an assumption on which the argument depends?!

A. The number of television assemblers in Vernland has increased by at least as much as the number of television assemblers in Borodia has decreased.

We do not have that data to prove option A.

B. Televisions assembled in Vernland have features that televisions assembled in Borodia do not have.

We are not talking about features here and hence B is out of scope

C. The average number of hours it takes a Borodian television assembler to assemble a television has not decreased significantly during the past three years.

There is a drop in number of assemblers in Borodia while the number of televisions sets sold has remained the same. So in order for the conclusion to stay true the output from Borodia should be low. In other words the time taken for an assemler to assemble one Television should not have decreased. If you voided option C, meaning that the efficiency of the assembler has increased then, we cannot confidently state that the number of imports from Vernland has increased because Borodia can still assemble the same amount of Televisions with lesser workforce. Hence C is the necessary assumption needed to support the conclusion.

D. The number of televisions assembled annually in Vernland has increased significantly during the past three years.

No proof.

E. The difference between the hourly wage of television assemblers in Vernland and the hourly wage of television assemblers in Borodia is likely to decrease in the next few year

We dont have data to prove.

Hopefully I cleared your ambiguity. Where did you get this question. Nice post BTW.

OG 112 -

Great reply. Thank you C does make more sense now.

One query, When you say no proof? . In assumption questions, we are supposed to take the answer choices to be true. I.e the stimulus is vulnerable. So D is a contender.. is it not?

Hi Mohit,
My approach to assumption questions- > you have to negate the options provided. The argument will fall apart if the correct assumption is negated.

Hope that helps.

Oh yes, that's from the PR CR bible. I think i know the rules now, just need to work on the application better. Getting questions right during analysis or retries are no good. Need to get them right at the first go.

Can you ellaborate a little bit on your approach to CR questions.

I tend to/ or atleast try to attempt CR questions using the following approach.

Read the Stimulus - Ascertain the conclusion (most of the time this step happens on its own, during reading the question itself i am able to recognize the conclusion correctly)

Read the question step - Check which portion is vulnerable I.e the stimulus (in case of weaken/strengthen question) or Answer Choices (Assumption/Conclusion/Main point)

Ideally i should try and paraphrase the answer but somehow, i don't do it. Its a habit i am trying to develop.

Run through each Answer Choice, Marking them as contender/non contender.. then if i have more than 1 contenders, i go back and analyze.

What i've found is that in some HARD questions, i tend to mark out the contender as non contender. I guess i end up becoming a little careless. however sometimes i can't reach the answer even after know the correct answer...

Would love to hear your take on it.

Good question and a very useful discussion.

amazonviper wrote:

mohit11 wrote:The average hourly wage of television assemblers in Vernland has long been significantly lower than that in neighboring Borodia. Since Borodia dropped all tariffs on Vernlandian televisions three years ago, the number of televisions sold annually in Borodia has not changed. However, recent statistics show a droip in the number of television assemblers in Borodia. Therefore, updated trade statistics will probably indicate that the number of televisions Borodia imports annually from Vernland has increased.

Which of the following is an assumption on which the argument depends?!

A. The number of television assemblers in Vernland has increased by at least as much as the number of television assemblers in Borodia has decreased.

We do not have that data to prove option A.

B. Televisions assembled in Vernland have features that televisions assembled in Borodia do not have.

We are not talking about features here and hence B is out of scope

C. The average number of hours it takes a Borodian television assembler to assemble a television has not decreased significantly during the past three years.

There is a drop in number of assemblers in Borodia while the number of televisions sets sold has remained the same. So in order for the conclusion to stay true the output from Borodia should be low. In other words the time taken for an assemler to assemble one Television should not have decreased. If you voided option C, meaning that the efficiency of the assembler has increased then, we cannot confidently state that the number of imports from Vernland has increased because Borodia can still assemble the same amount of Televisions with lesser workforce. Hence C is the necessary assumption needed to support the conclusion.

D. The number of televisions assembled annually in Vernland has increased significantly during the past three years.

No proof.

E. The difference between the hourly wage of television assemblers in Vernland and the hourly wage of television assemblers in Borodia is likely to decrease in the next few year

We dont have data to prove.

Hopefully I cleared your ambiguity. Where did you get this question. Nice post BTW.

I am not convince with C. [ Others also definitely are not convincing]
If we do negate of C -> Average time per TV is reduced, so it means more TC can be assembled for a given time frame. But the argument is clearly saying that 'recent statistics show a drop in the number of television assemblers in Borodia'
This line is a premise for the conclusion so it means it must be true.
Hence we can say that even if average time is reduced, beacuse of some other reasons, the total assembled TV can be reduced (e.g some of the manufacturing units are not working now)
Thus point C is not a assumption here.
Can you please explain it in more detail.

amazonviper wrote:

mohit11 wrote:The average hourly wage of television assemblers in Vernland has long been significantly lower than that in neighboring Borodia. Since Borodia dropped all tariffs on Vernlandian televisions three years ago, the number of televisions sold annually in Borodia has not changed. However, recent statistics show a droip in the number of television assemblers in Borodia. Therefore, updated trade statistics will probably indicate that the number of televisions Borodia imports annually from Vernland has increased.

Which of the following is an assumption on which the argument depends?!

A. The number of television assemblers in Vernland has increased by at least as much as the number of television assemblers in Borodia has decreased.

We do not have that data to prove option A.

B. Televisions assembled in Vernland have features that televisions assembled in Borodia do not have.

We are not talking about features here and hence B is out of scope

C. The average number of hours it takes a Borodian television assembler to assemble a television has not decreased significantly during the past three years.

There is a drop in number of assemblers in Borodia while the number of televisions sets sold has remained the same. So in order for the conclusion to stay true the output from Borodia should be low. In other words the time taken for an assemler to assemble one Television should not have decreased. If you voided option C, meaning that the efficiency of the assembler has increased then, we cannot confidently state that the number of imports from Vernland has increased because Borodia can still assemble the same amount of Televisions with lesser workforce. Hence C is the necessary assumption needed to support the conclusion.

D. The number of televisions assembled annually in Vernland has increased significantly during the past three years.

No proof.

E. The difference between the hourly wage of television assemblers in Vernland and the hourly wage of television assemblers in Borodia is likely to decrease in the next few year

We dont have data to prove.

Hopefully I cleared your ambiguity. Where did you get this question. Nice post BTW.

The explanation is good.. but then .. in "C"... negation oof "not decrased" should be "decrased" not "increased"... How do we reach the conclusion.. ie "C" as the answer...

Mohit, good post

If I haven't seen your heading "V.Tricky", I would have selected "A".
After the second pass I could see whats wrong. As you have mentioned shoudl learn to get it in the first pass

Thanks.

Thanks for the great explanation amazonviper. !!!!

Agree with the above w/ doubts on C : the assembly time has NOT decreased. Why it says NOT; it should says the assembly time has decreased, or stayed the same => leading to a necessity of imports from Vernland.

IF it says has not decreased, it means that it stayed the same or increased=> thus leading to the conclusion that imports from Vernland are not necessary anymore ( thus WEAKENiNG the argument).

Please help!

ironsferri wrote:Agree with the above w/ doubts on C : the assembly time has NOT decreased. Why it says NOT; it should says the assembly time has decreased, or stayed the same => leading to a necessity of imports from Vernland.

IF it says has not decreased, it means that it stayed the same or increased=> thus leading to the conclusion that imports from Vernland are not necessary anymore ( thus WEAKENiNG the argument).

Please help!

The stem says that Number of Borodia assemblers have reduced. So that prompts Borodia to IMPORT television from Vernland.

let us take few numbers to understand quantitatively :

No of Workers in Borodia : 100

No of televisions assembled by one worker : 5

Total number of televisions assembled by 100 workers : 100 * 5 = 500

So 500 is fixed amount to be sold in the market.

Now the Number of workers in Borodia has decreased : (say by 50) = 100 -50 = 50

Total number of televisions assembled by 50 workers : 50 * 5 = 250

Now Borodia has to keep up with its DEMAND. It has a option of doing so by "importing".

Here we are asked to prove that the number of televisions Borodia imports annually from Vernland has increased. !!

Option C say that

Efficiency of workers has not decreased. So it means that, to maintain the supply Bordia has to import TV from vernland .


Actually Option C is very very tricky.

Let me explain why so?? C says
efficicieny has not decreased;

It has TWO possibities

1. Efficicency coud remain same---- This is helpful to support the conclusion that imports will increase.

2. Efficicency has INCREASED. ---- Now if this is true then , it actually weakens the conclusion.
If efficiency increases then there is no need to import from Vernland.

So for the sake of strengthening the argument,we are forced to assume that "efficiency has remained same ".

Ok, if we have been asked to "weaken the argument", one possibility is we can again say that Efficicency has INCREASED.

ironsferri wrote:Agree with the above w/ doubts on C : the assembly time has NOT decreased. Why it says NOT; it should says the assembly time has decreased, or stayed the same => leading to a necessity of imports from Vernland.

IF it says has not decreased, it means that it stayed the same or increased=> thus leading to the conclusion that imports from Vernland are not necessary anymore ( thus WEAKENiNG the argument).

Please help!

Plz see my previous post....

I agree with u. What if the efficiency has increased??? Yea, if that is the case it is weaken the argument.

I think most people had mistaked hours to make one tv vs number of tv/workder.
I was thinking that hours/tv had not decreased.
This is the keyword.

gmatmachoman wrote:

ironsferri wrote:Agree with the above w/ doubts on C : the assembly time has NOT decreased. Why it says NOT; it should says the assembly time has decreased, or stayed the same => leading to a necessity of imports from Vernland.

IF it says has not decreased, it means that it stayed the same or increased=> thus leading to the conclusion that imports from Vernland are not necessary anymore ( thus WEAKENiNG the argument).

Please help!

The stem says that Number of Borodia assemblers have reduced. So that prompts Borodia to IMPORT television from Vernland.

let us take few numbers to understand quantitatively :

No of Workers in Borodia : 100

No of televisions assembled by one worker : 5

Total number of televisions assembled by 100 workers : 100 * 5 = 500

So 500 is fixed amount to be sold in the market.

Now the Number of workers in Borodia has decreased : (say by 50) = 100 -50 = 50

Total number of televisions assembled by 50 workers : 50 * 5 = 250

Now Borodia has to keep up with its DEMAND. It has a option of doing so by "importing".

Here we are asked to prove that the number of televisions Borodia imports annually from Vernland has increased. !!

Option C say that

Efficiency of workers has not decreased. So it means that, to maintain the supply Bordia has to import TV from vernland .


Actually Option C is very very tricky.

Let me explain why so?? C says
efficicieny has not decreased;

It has TWO possibities

1. Efficicency coud remain same---- This is helpful to support the conclusion that imports will increase.

2. Efficicency has INCREASED. ---- Now if this is true then , it actually weakens the conclusion.
If efficiency increases then there is no need to import from Vernland.

So for the sake of strengthening the argument,we are forced to assume that "efficiency has remained same ".

Ok, if we have been asked to "weaken the argument", one possibility is we can again say that Efficicency has INCREASED.