A greater number of newspapers are sold in town S and the conclusion is that citizens are better informed than the citizens of town T. The assumption here is that newspapers sold in town S are brought by citizens of town S and read which makes them better informed.

(B) says that most citizens of town T work in town S and buy their newspapers in town S. This would weaken the assumption that the newspapers sold in town S and brought by citizens of town S and hence would weaken the conclusion


What is OA?

Each of the following, if true, weakens the conclusion above EXCEPT:

You misread the question

I think the answer is E because E says that "The average newsstand price of newspapers sold in Town S is lower than the average price of newspapers sold in Town T. " .
Citizens of town S bought more newspapers than those in town T because of the cheap price. Therefore, they may not care much about the information posted.

Damn caffeine and late friday nights
I need to focus.

A - More population in S does not necessarily mean more informed.
Weakens.

B - Weakens. Classic GMAT weakening type argument

C - Weakens. In S, citizens read less. So, can be less informed.

D - Local events is the clue here. Weakens.

E - Does not weaken.

I also chose E (btw that's the OA). What I can't understand is why A can't be an answer also. It seems to me that both A & E are out of scope.

The amount of people in each town doesn't strengthen or weaken the argument as to whether the people in town S are more informed & neither does the price of the newspaper

hi..
this is a typically tough question..

perhaps can only be solved by POE..


A greater number of newspapers are sold in Town S than in Town T. Therefore, the citizens of Town S arebetter informed about major world events than are the citizens of Town T.

Each of the following, if true, weakens the conclusion above EXCEPT:
(A) Town S has a larger population than Town T.
(B) Most citizens of Town T work in Town S and buy their newspapers there.
(C) The average citizen of Town S spends less time reading newspapers than does the average citizen of
Town T.
(D) A weekly newspaper restricted to the coverage of local events is published in Town S.
(E) The average newsstand price of newspapers sold in Town S in lower than the average price of
newspapers sold in Town T.

requires a lot many assumptions:

premise : more newspapers are sold in S than in T
conc: town S citizens re more well read abt the world than town T.

assumptions(wrt the statements):

1)newspapers in town S are more enlightening on worldy issues than town T.
2)the amount of time spent reading decides how enlightened you are.


weakening reasons:

B) states that most ppl from T buy papers in S..hence both should have similar knowledge abt the world. weakens the conclusion directly.

C)Here one has to assume 2, then it weakens.

D) a local paper adds to local(and not global) news therby decreasing worldly avarice of ppl of town S.(again assuming that ppl of town S buy that paper and they read the local news).

A)confusing, don really know how it weakens : it just says that the population of S is more than that of T....but it dosen mean to say that ppl of A re not more informed than S....... : ...i guess, more population--more information...so it jus might weaken...

E)says nothing really.....low price dosen mean that ppl will not buy costly papers in S.....so it dosen weaken really.....Hence E should be the answer

any better explanations on A re more than welcome........

We do not choose A because

We need an option that should strengthen the statement that Town S are better informed about world events than are the citizens of Town T.

Now the premise says greater number of newspaper sold at Town S than in Town T.

for Example

Town S = 100

Town T = 10

Population of Town S = 10000
Town T = 100

Rate of people reading newspaper

Town S = 100 / 10000 = 1 %
Town T = 10 / 100 = 10 %

so option A actually weakens the statement.

Hope this helps