The dot scanner---Assumption

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The dot scanner---Assumption

by amysky_0205 » Fri Jan 25, 2013 1:46 am
The general availability of high-quality electronic scanners and color printers for
computers has made the counterfeiting of checks much easier. In order to deter such
counterfeiting, several banks plan to issue to their corporate customers checks that
contain dots too small to be accurately duplicated by any electronic scanner currently
available; when such checks are scanned and printed, the dots seem to blend together
in such a way that the word "VOID" appears on the check

A questionable assumption of the plan is that

A. in the territory served by the banks the proportion of counterfeit checks that
are made using electronic scanners has remained approximately constant over
the past few years
B. most counterfeiters who use electronic scanners counterfeit checks only for
relatively large amounts of money
C. the smallest dots on the proposed checks cannot be distinguished visually
except under strong magnification
D. most corporations served by these banks will not have to pay more for the new
checks than for traditional checks
E. the size of the smallest dots that generally available electronic scanners are
able to reproduce accurately will not decrease significantly in the near future.


OA: E

can someone explain the option D and why E is much better?

thank u!!!!!
Source: — Critical Reasoning |

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by shenoydevika » Fri Jan 25, 2013 3:01 am
Hey amysky!

The banks are relying on the fact that those tiny dots cannot be duplicated by any electronic scanner currently available. They hope to deter counterfeiting by issuing cheques which have these tiny dots.

Now do u see the questionable assumption here? The banks are assuming that new scanners will not be able to duplicate the tiny dots either. That's why E.

Why not D? D is a good option actually (IMO) If the new cheques are so expensive that customers would rather risk counterfeit cheques than shell out the extra charge, the plan wouldn't work. But since they are talking about corporate customers here (who have considerable more spending power) and they are talking about deterring and not totally stopping counterfeiting, E would work better.

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by lunarpower » Sat Jan 26, 2013 1:26 am
as on other questions about assumptions, you can also try negating the answer choices and seeing whether the argument is destroyed.

if (e) is negated, you get
the size of the smallest dots that generally available electronic scanners are able to reproduce accurately will decrease significantly in the near future
--> if that's true, the plan is fatally flawed, as there is no longer any assurance that the tiny dots will continue to be "copy-proof".

if (d) is negated, you get
most corporations served by these banks will have to pay more for the new
checks than for traditional checks

--> this statement doesn't affect whether the plan will deter counterfeiting (unless you make the rather outlandish assumption that any increase in the price of the checks will cause every corporate customer to reject them and switch to a different issuing bank).
Ron has been teaching various standardized tests for 20 years.

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by tanviet » Sat Jan 26, 2013 6:58 am
lunarpower wrote:as on other questions about assumptions, you can also try negating the answer choices and seeing whether the argument is destroyed.

if (e) is negated, you get
the size of the smallest dots that generally available electronic scanners are able to reproduce accurately will decrease significantly in the near future
--> if that's true, the plan is fatally flawed, as there is no longer any assurance that the tiny dots will continue to be "copy-proof".

if (d) is negated, you get
most corporations served by these banks will have to pay more for the new
checks than for traditional checks

--> this statement doesn't affect whether the plan will deter counterfeiting (unless you make the rather outlandish assumption that any increase in the price of the checks will cause every corporate customer to reject them and switch to a different issuing bank).
thank you Ron
what do you think before you go to answer choice and after you read the argument? pls , detail this process so that we can learn from you. Thank you

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by lunarpower » Sat Jan 26, 2013 7:20 am
duongthang wrote:what do you think before you go to answer choice and after you read the argument? pls , detail this process so that we can learn from you. Thank you
i basically just think about the situation, in much the same way i would in a normal conversation. it's not a systematic process; it's basically just normal human intuition.
the key, though, is to do exactly the opposite of what you're trying to do here: i.e., you have to avoid thinking about any "rules" or anything else "systematic".

you're not going to be able to "detail the process" here.
in fact, if you could do that, then you would have the secret to "strong artificial intelligence" (strong AI) in your hands, and you would become the richest person in the world pretty quickly.
Ron has been teaching various standardized tests for 20 years.

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by nisagl750 » Sat Jan 26, 2013 10:25 pm
Can you please explain choice C

If the smallest dots on the proposed checks are easily distinguishable, wont that make the people who counterfeit the checks alert and devise other ways to counterfeit checks that does not show "VOID" on counterfeited checks?