Critical Reasoning

In 1973, a remote town first acquired television. Shortly before broadcasts began there, a study was made of children's behavior. A similar study in the same community, after two years of TV, showed that the aggression rate among children of this age had increased by 160%. The conclusion drawn was that TV plays an important role in generating aggressive behavior in children. A second study, covering the same years, was made in two similar communities that had had television for decades. This study showed no change in the aggression rate from 1973 to 1975. The results of the second study:

A) suggest that the prevalence of violent themes in TV programming may be explained by the tendencies toward violence that are deeply-rooted in human nature.

B) indicate that different social groups may react quite differently to similar stimuli.

C) demonstrate that long-term exposure to TV has no more severe effects than short-term exposure.

D) support the conclusion drawn from the first study.

E) disprove the conclusion drawn from the first study.

Please explain the choices. Thank you

Is it E?

Good Question.

For me A and E are the contenders.
i would like to go with A,
Please post the OA then i would to share my reasoning behind it.

reply2spg wrote:Is it E?

IMO B explains the scenario lot better. Stimuli is seeing TV and the reaction ( aggression) is different for different social groups

OA is D

It was a spolier and here is the reasoning. Expert can we get a simplified solution. option "E" is a shell game.

This is a complicated question and requires a complicated explanation. It is important to keep in mind just what the reported results are. Perhaps most importantly, nothing is said about the absolute values of the aggression rates, but only about changes in the rates. And nothing is said about how the rates in the other two communities compared with those of the first. The first study correlated two changes-the change from no TV to TV in 1973 and the change in aggression rates from 1973 to 1975. And the tentative conclusion is that the first of these changes was the cause of the second change. The second study focused on communities in which there was no change of the first sort-they were already well accustomed to TV in 1973. (Thus the second study focuses on a sort of natural 'control group.') That study found that there was no change of the second type - aggression rates in those communities remained constant from 1973 to 1975. The second study thus tends to reduce the plausibility of the suggestion that some change other than the introduction of TV caused the rise in aggressiveness in the first community (it acts as a 'control' to this experiment.) If there were some other cause, at least it doesn't seem to have been acting in the communities of the second study. And that reduces the range of possible candidates. Thus the second study tends to make more probable the conclusion drawn from the first.

SmarpanGamt wrote:OA is D

It was a spolier and here is the reasoning. Expert can we get a simplified solution. option "E" is a shell game.

This is a complicated question and requires a complicated explanation. It is important to keep in mind just what the reported results are. Perhaps most importantly, nothing is said about the absolute values of the aggression rates, but only about changes in the rates. And nothing is said about how the rates in the other two communities compared with those of the first. The first study correlated two changes-the change from no TV to TV in 1973 and the change in aggression rates from 1973 to 1975. And the tentative conclusion is that the first of these changes was the cause of the second change. The second study focused on communities in which there was no change of the first sort-they were already well accustomed to TV in 1973. (Thus the second study focuses on a sort of natural 'control group.') That study found that there was no change of the second type - aggression rates in those communities remained constant from 1973 to 1975. The second study thus tends to reduce the plausibility of the suggestion that some change other than the introduction of TV caused the rise in aggressiveness in the first community (it acts as a 'control' to this experiment.) If there were some other cause, at least it doesn't seem to have been acting in the communities of the second study. And that reduces the range of possible candidates. Thus the second study tends to make more probable the conclusion drawn from the first.

to be honest, i am so suprised with the OA:
the Cr just described 2 experiments and compares their result. i dont find any conclusions....
my answer is B
maybe this question needs expert

SmarpanGamt wrote:In 1973, a remote town first acquired television. Shortly before broadcasts began there, a study was made of children's behavior. A similar study in the same community, after two years of TV, showed that the aggression rate among children of this age had increased by 160%. The conclusion drawn was that TV plays an important role in generating aggressive behavior in children. A second study, covering the same years, was made in two similar communities that had had television for decades. This study showed no change in the aggression rate from 1973 to 1975. The results of the second study:

A) suggest that the prevalence of violent themes in TV programming may be explained by the tendencies toward violence that are deeply-rooted in human nature.

B) indicate that different social groups may react quite differently to similar stimuli.

C) demonstrate that long-term exposure to TV has no more severe effects than short-term exposure.

D) support the conclusion drawn from the first study.

E) disprove the conclusion drawn from the first study.

Please explain the choices. Thank you

ok, found it, the conclusion but still dont understand D
the first experiment said TV changed kid's behavior
the second says " TV doesnt harm or changed anything, they watch tv for 10 years and their behavior is still good!
( something like that)
how come the second experment support the conclusion when it concluded that the TV affected to children??

It's a LSAT question. Interesting question, and I haven't really seen one quite similar to this one from the OG or any of the GMAT materials.

I guess I can see how D could be correct, but I don't think this would be a GMAT question.

Well this question is from 800score.com. But I am still confused with the OA. IMO the answer should be C. As we see the first line it says that "town first acquired televsion" which means that first television acquired during 1973 and after 2 years i.e. 1975 the study showed the behaviour of the children. whereas the second study covers the same years i.e. 1973 to 1975, but the communities had televsion for decades. That means during the initial period it may have happened that the same results as of the 1st study was seen. So during these decades the aggression rate would have decreased or would have resulted in less severe effects than the short-term exposure.
Kindly explain how I am wrong & how to come to the OA. Request for the logic behind the OA.