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an easy one BUT........

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an easy one BUT........

by ansh.kumar » Sat Jan 23, 2010 3:07 am
95. Students.com study reports that those students who receive full financial aid tend to maintain higher GPAs than those who must take out loans or work to finance school. The study concludes that financial aid enables students to achieve high GPAs by alleviating the stress related to financial concerns and freeing up students' time to study more.
The conclusion drawn in the argument above follows logically if which one of the following is assumed?
A. Students who take out loans maintain higher GPAs than those who work to finance school.
B. High GPAs were not the primary criterion upon which the scholarship awards were based.
C. Finance-related stress affects student performance in a manner similar to that of restricted study time.
D. Students who must work to pay for their studies cannot maintain high GPAs.
E. Controlling stress level is less important to student performance than is intensive studying.
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by mmon » Sat Jan 23, 2010 6:14 am
IMO B. If we negate this we get "High GPAs were the criterion for awarding scholarship" obviously tells they are still getting higher GPAs because they are good at study, and does not give any reason why others are not getting.

I think another way to explain this as following -
author suggests scholarship - > no stress -> good GPA. to make the this causal relations correct we need to remove other cause if possible i.e. brilliant students -> high GPA. so if we say the student who are rewarded scholarship not all brilliant but still get high GPAs - makes author conclusion more strong.
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by fibbonnaci » Sat Jan 23, 2010 7:44 am
Hey this is a causual reasoning statement. The word enables to is a causual indicator. whenever you see 2 events such that one causes the other remember you are dealing with causual reasoning.
Causual reasoning is universal fallacy. It can never be right.

The assumptions for causual reasoning:
1. whenever cause occurs effect occurs.
2. alternate cause does not exist.
3. when cause does not exist effect too does not exist.
4. Effect does not lead to cause.
5. data validation.

Of all the types, type 4 is subtle and nicely camouflaged. so identifying the type needs you to be alert and on ur toes :)

here the author states that financial aid (cause) --> high GPA's (effect)

Lets dissect the answer choices:

A. Students who take out loans maintain higher GPAs than those who work to finance school. (difference between taking loan and working to fund is not implied at all. the passage talks about them as a cluster. does not show any variation in them)
B. High GPAs were not the primary criterion upon which the scholarship awards were based. [ Bingo. this is the type 4. do u see that it means the effect( High Gpa) does not lead to cause (financial aid)??else too by negation technique this answer choice must have worked ]
C. Finance-related stress affects student performance in a manner similar to that of restricted study time. [ purely out of scope.]
D. Students who must work to pay for their studies cannot maintain high GPAs. [ this is not stated anywhere and cannot become an assumption also]
E. Controlling stress level is less important to student performance than is intensive studying. [ comparison between controlling stress and intensive study is not made at all]
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by komal » Sat Jan 23, 2010 8:55 am
The evidence of the study indicates that students on full scholarships maintain higher grade point averages (GPAs) than do students who work or take out loans. From this evidence, the study concluded that the scholarships "enable" those students to earn higher GPAs by alleviating financial stress and freeing up the students' time. Notice how the evidence links scholarships and higher GPAs, but the conclusion jumps into the realm of cause and effect-a common GMAT shift in scope. The word enable is your clue that the author is now speaking of a causal mechanism.

The author assumes that the only possible reason for the association is the causal mechanism cited in the conclusion, and the correct answer will very likely bolster this notion by eliminating an alternative explanation. (B) is the correct answer. Lets dissect each of the answer choices

(A) offers an irrelevant comparison that does not make the study's conclusion any more likely. Even if students who take out loans do not maintain higher GPAs than those who work to finance school, students with scholarships can still maintain higher GPAs than both of the other groups.

(B) hits on the right issue. It's possible that the author of this argument got the causal mechanism backwards. She argues that scholarships lead to high GPA's, but maybe the opposite is true: high GPA's lead to scholarships. The argument won't work if there's another reason for the correlation cited in the evidence. If high GPAs are the primary criterion for the scholarships in the first place, then it's not surprising that scholarship holders tend to earn higher GPAs than others. The students must generally be of otherwise equal ability before the conclusion can safely be drawn. (B) is the answer because it eliminates a very plausible alternative explanation for the correlation cited in the first sentence, and thus is the assumption on which this conclusion depends.

(C) is irrelevant to the argument because it makes a comparison between the positive effects of scholarships. The argument concludes that more time and less financial worry together enable students to maintain higher GPAs. The conclusion does not rely on any particular distinction between these factors.

(D) is in no way required by the argument. Even if students who must work to pay for their studies can maintain high GPAs, the GPAs of scholarship students can still be higher.

(E), makes an irrelevant comparison. Stress and study time are two factors that may influence student performance, but there's no specific comparison of their relative importance that's necessary for this argument to work. Scholarships may still confer an advantage in the manner cited no matter what the relative importance of these factors may be.
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by linkinpark » Sat Jan 23, 2010 9:10 am
My pick is C, its fills the logical gap that finance related stress is problem for loan taking/working students
530->480->580
when posting a question don't post OA(even masked) before some discussion.
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by prinit » Sat Jan 23, 2010 9:23 am
My Pick is B. It is an assumption that fills up the gap properly.

Linkinpark>> choice C is a Gmat trap... this is where they score :) . The choice C is something stated in the conclusion. Pls remember that assumptions are not stated in the argument rather we have to find one among choices..Good question though..we got be extra careful now.
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by joseph32 » Sun May 15, 2016 10:48 pm
Answer B seems to be logical one out of other answer choices
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