BREAKING: Target Test Prep releases Brand New 2026 On Demand GMAT prep course

Redeem

Target Test Prep · GMAT

Choose how you want to prepare

Learn live with an expert or move at your own pace. Every option includes the complete TTP study system.

★★★★★5.0559 reviews
Vote for Target Test Prep, Newsweek Readers’ Choice Awards 2026
NEWSWEEK READERS’ CHOICE 2026

BIG NEWS! Target Test Prep has been nominated, and they’d love your vote!

TTP has worked incredibly hard to build the best test prep experience possible, and winning Newsweek’s 2026 Readers’ Choice Award for Best Test Prep would mean a lot to them. If TTP has helped you, they’d be incredibly grateful for your vote. You can vote once each day through September 9.

Vote for TTP
GMATLiveTeach 7 seats left
Chris Peckover
NEXT LIVE COHORT

Oct 13 to Jan 7, 2027

with Chris Peckover

Schedule
Tue, Thu · 8:00 to 10:00 PM ET
Included
40 live hours + 6 months of GMAT OnDemand
  • Live instruction and real-time questions
  • Class recordings and assigned practice
View class & enroll
Limited cohort · enrollment openTarget Test Prep
EALiveTeach 5 seats left
Logan Thompson
EXECUTIVE ASSESSMENT

Sep 6 to Dec 6, 2026

with Logan Thompson

Schedule
Sun · 9:30 AM to 12:30 PM ET
Included
40 hours of live online classes plus six months of access to the complete TTP EA OnDemand course.
  • 165+ EA Score Guarantee
  • 4,100+ Quant, Verbal, and Integrated Reasoning practice questions
  • 400+ hours of in-depth video lessons
  • 3,000+ step-by-step video solutions
View EA class & enroll
Limited cohort · enrollment openTarget Test Prep
GMATOnDemand Start anytime
SELF-PACED MASTERCLASS

Target Test Prep GMAT OnDemand

Complete access from day one. Study on your schedule.

715+ score guarantee
$0to start then $127/mo
  • Personalized study plan and analytics
  • Thousands of lessons and practice questions

Compare the format, schedule, and included access before enrolling. Prices and seat counts shown reflect the supplied offer details.

1000CR Tests - Weaken the conclusion

Expert replies
by oks » Sun Sep 07, 2008 11:16 am
Tocqueville, a nineteenth-century writer known for his study of democracy in the United States, believed that a government that centralizes power in one individual or institution is dangerous to its citizens. Biographers claim that Tocqueville disliked centralized government because he blamed Napoleon’s rule for the poverty of his childhood in Normandy.
Which of the following, if true, would cast the most serious doubt on the biographers’ claim?
(A) Although Napoleon was popularly blamed at the time for the terrible living conditions in Normandy, historians now know that bad harvests were really to blame for the poor economic conditions.
(B) Napoleon was notorious for refusing to share power with any of his political associates.
(C) Tocqueville said he knew that if his father had not suffered ill health, his family would have had a steady income and a comfortable standard of living.
(D) Although Tocqueville asserted that United States political life was democratic, the United States of the nineteenth century allowed political power to be concentrated in a few institutions.
(E) Tocqueville once wrote in a letter that, although his childhood was terribly impoverished, it was not different from the experience of his friends and neighbors in Normandy.

Answ: C

At first I thought the answer should be A.

Please explain your thoughts.

Thanks!
Join the discussion
Source: — Critical Reasoning |

by GMATDavid » Mon Sep 08, 2008 7:06 am
Hi,

We are asked to weaken the conclusion that T disliked central governments for the specific reason that he blamed N for his childhood poverty.

All answer choices are deemed true. Even if we take (A) as true -- that scholars NOW know that N was not to blame for poverty even though people then did blame N -- we cannot form a judgment as to what T believed at the time. T could have unfairly blamed him, as it seems many people did. Thus (A) does not cast doubt on the conclusion that T disliked central governments specifically because of his (perhaps wrong) belief about N's effect on T's childhood.

On the other hand, if we take (C) as true -- that T grew up to believe that his father was to blame for their poverty -- then we know that he put the blame on someone other than N. Thus, his dislike of central governments did not stem from a blame of N for his family's poverty but from something else. The biographers are wrong.

Cheers,
David Stoll
The Princeton Review
Join the discussion

by john83.amar » Wed May 11, 2016 12:19 pm
The official answer is A. But I don't understand why? Can anyone explain
Join the discussion