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by sogmat » Tue Apr 14, 2009 6:08 pm
A government agency publishes ratings of airlines, ranking highest the airlines that have the smallest proportion of late flights. The agency’s purpose is to establish an objective measure of the relative efficiency of different airlines’ personnel in meeting published flight schedules.
Which one of the following, if true, would tend to invalidate use of the ratings for the agency’s purpose?
(A) Travelers sometimes have no choice of airlines for a given trip at a given time.
(B) Flights are often made late by bad weather conditions that affect some airlines more that others.
(C) The flight schedules of all airlines allow extra time for flights that go into or out of very busy airports.
(D) Airline personnel are aware that the government agency is monitoring all airline flights for lateness.
(E) Flights are defined as “late” only if they arrive more that fifteen minutes past their scheduled arrival time, and a record is made of how much later than fifteen minutes they are.

OA-B
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Source: — Critical Reasoning |

by sands_of_time » Tue Apr 14, 2009 8:31 pm
B is correct.

Here, we need an argument which shows that the agency's method is somewhat flawed. Now, if indifferent weather conditions affect some flights more than other flights, then there is no way to judge the arrival timings of different airlines in an unbiased manner. Hence option B is most appropriate.
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by sands_of_time » Tue Apr 14, 2009 8:32 pm
B is correct.

Here, we need an argument which shows that the agency's method is somewhat flawed. Now, if indifferent weather conditions affect some flights more than other flights, then there is no way to judge the arrival timings of different airlines in an unbiased manner. Hence option B is most appropriate.
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Re: airlines

by rahulg83 » Tue Apr 14, 2009 9:19 pm
sogmat wrote:A government agency publishes ratings of airlines, ranking highest the airlines that have the smallest proportion of late flights. The agency’s purpose is to establish an objective measure of the relative efficiency of different airlines’ personnel in meeting published flight schedules.
Which one of the following, if true, would tend to invalidate use of the ratings for the agency’s purpose?
(A) Travelers sometimes have no choice of airlines for a given trip at a given time.
(B) Flights are often made late by bad weather conditions that affect some airlines more that others.
(C) The flight schedules of all airlines allow extra time for flights that go into or out of very busy airports.
(D) Airline personnel are aware that the government agency is monitoring all airline flights for lateness.
(E) Flights are defined as “late” only if they arrive more that fifteen minutes past their scheduled arrival time, and a record is made of how much later than fifteen minutes they are.

OA-B
If agency is using these ratings just to measure airline personnel's efficiency, then for personnel whose flights are regularly getting delayed will be deemed inefficient. But there could be another reason for delay in flights and that is supported by choice B
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using POE works well for this argume

by mharv » Tue Apr 14, 2009 10:35 pm
Conclusion/Agency's aim: To measure airlines personnel in meeting flight schedule
Premise: Flights are late because of lack of efficiency and hence airlines rankings go down

A is out of scope for this argument, as the passage has nothing to do with travellers

B introduces a factor other than the airlines personnel that affects the schedule of airlines. It weakens the conclusion/agency's aim of calculating efficiency and is correct answer

C is plausible however irrelevant to the agency

D is probably true, that it would be better for personnel not to know they are being monitored. However it does not invalidate the rating process so it can be eliminated

E is out of scope for this argument, as it is describing what constitutes a late flight .. not relevant to agency
Regards,
Arvind
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by delhiboy1979 » Tue Apr 14, 2009 10:43 pm
B and D are the only two options that in some way weaken the argument. B is however stronger than D. ALso, I think if B were not an option D was the best one then.
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by samanthaJ79 » Sun May 15, 2016 4:58 am
I would go with option B
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