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Evaluate Argument

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Evaluate Argument

by Soumita » Mon Jan 21, 2013 12:19 am
In 1992, only 12 percent of the women between 18 and 24 years of age were adhering to a low-carb diet, while in 2003, 26 percent of women between 18 and 24 years of age were adhering to a low-carb diet. This points to the inevitable conclusion that the proportion of women among people adhering to a low-carb diet has increased over the past decade.

To evaluate the argument above, it would be most useful to compare which of the following characteristics?

A.The percentage of women between 18 and 24 years of age who were not following a low-carb diet in 1992 and 2003.

B.The percentage of women between 18 and 24 years of age who switched to another after 6 months in each year from 1992 to 2003

C.The percentage of men between 18 and 24 years of age who followed a low-carb diet in 1992 and 2003

D.The percentage of women, between 1992 and 2003, who were not following a low-carb diet

E.The percentage of men in each year from 1992 to 2003 who followed a low-carb diet


OA C

1)Can anyone let me know the strategy to attack this type question. So that I can apply the same in future. So anyone has any easy idea.

I always choice wrong answer for this type of CR.

2)Can anyone also give me some more example of this type of question so that I can practice.
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by Tommy Wallach » Mon Jan 21, 2013 6:53 pm
Hey Soumita,

For evaluate-the-argument style questions, you need to study the conclusion and premise, as with any other assumption style question.

Conclusion: The proportion of women AMONG people adhering to a low-carb diet has gone up.

Premise: The percent of women adhering to a low-carb diet has gone up.

Now, BEFORE YOU LOOK AT THE ANSWER CHOICES, you need to figure out what's missing from this argument. There's a reason why they're asking you what information would help you; as it stands, a piece of information is missing.

In this example, they go from a statistic about ONLY women to a statistic about ALL people. What we're missing here is men. If the proportion of both women has gone up AND the proportion of men has gone down, then the conclusion would definitely be true. But if all we know is that the percent of women has gone up, it could be that the percent of men has gone up MORE, so the proportion of women among people adhering to a diet has actually gone down.

So, the answer to your general question is: study the conclusion and premise and locate the missing piece of information yourself. Then you'll be armed when you go into the answer choices.

As for more examples, you can use the improvement guide on this website: https://www.beatthegmat.com/mba/gmat-error-log to locate other evaluate the argument questions. Good luck!

-t
Tommy Wallach, Company Expert
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