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Average age of CEO : weaken Q.

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Average age of CEO : weaken Q.

by jaymin » Wed Feb 04, 2009 10:18 am
# The average age of chief executive officers (CEO’s) in a large sample of companies is 57. The average age of CEO’s in those same companies 20 years ago was approximately eight years younger. On the basis of those data, it can be concluded that CEO’s in general tend to be older now.
Which of the following casts the most doubt on the conclusion drawn above?
(A) The dates when the CEO’s assumed their current positions have not been specified.
(B) No information is given concerning the average number of years that CEO’s remain in office.
(C) The information is based only on companies that have been operating for at least 20 years.
(D) Only approximate information is given concerning the average age of the CEO’s 20 years ago.
(E) Information concerning the exact number of companies in the sample has not been given.
OA: C

MyAnalysis:
conclusion: CEO's in general tend to be older now.
Reasoning: the current sample of companies have CEOs who have an average age of 57. twenty years ago, for the same sample of companies, the CEOs were approx. 8 years younger.
the Q asks us to weaken the conclusion. so why not choice B ? no information is given on the tenure of the CEOs. If the CEOs who were present 20 years ago, still continue to be in the office, then naturally the average age of CEOs will tend to rise. Since the argument does not give any information regarding the same, answer choice B should be the best criticism.

Kindly let me know your views and approach.
I seem to be getting such questions almost always wrong. Can someone suggest me as to where am I going wrong?

Thanks.
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Source: — Critical Reasoning |
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by 4meonly » Wed Feb 04, 2009 10:58 am
The average age of chief executive officers (CEO’s) in a large sample of companies is 57. The average age of CEO’s in those same companies 20 years ago was approximately eight years younger. On the basis of those data, it can be concluded that CEO’s in general tend to be older now.


Read the stimulus carefully.
General conclusion is based on one example. That's why Conclusion is incorrect. Answer C clearly indicates this flaw and that's why C is correct one
As for B I consider it "out-of-scope": stimulus speaks about average age of CEOs while B speaks about CEO's time on their positions.
Let me know if you have any doubts

I have my personal approqach to CR questions
My approach to CR
- read the question stem first, understand the type of question and imagine most frequent gaps in this type of question.
- read the stimulus. find conclusion and premises. OK, This is deductive logic argument. Major flaw of these arguments - generalisation with the basis on one example. (My dog is black -> all dogs are black)
- make a pause, imagine how correct answer can look like. think "inside the box"
- read the answers
- mark one correct / OR eliminate incorrect
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Re: Average age of CEO : weaken Q.

by sjd00d » Wed Feb 04, 2009 4:23 pm
jaymin wrote:# The average age of chief executive officers (CEO’s) in a large sample of companies is 57. The average age of CEO’s in those same companies 20 years ago was approximately eight years younger. On the basis of those data, it can be concluded that CEO’s in general tend to be older now.
Which of the following casts the most doubt on the conclusion drawn above?
(A) The dates when the CEO’s assumed their current positions have not been specified.
(B) No information is given concerning the average number of years that CEO’s remain in office.
(C) The information is based only on companies that have been operating for at least 20 years.
(D) Only approximate information is given concerning the average age of the CEO’s 20 years ago.
(E) Information concerning the exact number of companies in the sample has not been given.
OA: C

MyAnalysis:
conclusion: CEO's in general tend to be older now.
Reasoning: the current sample of companies have CEOs who have an average age of 57. twenty years ago, for the same sample of companies, the CEOs were approx. 8 years younger.
the Q asks us to weaken the conclusion. so why not choice B ? no information is given on the tenure of the CEOs. If the CEOs who were present 20 years ago, still continue to be in the office, then naturally the average age of CEOs will tend to rise. Since the argument does not give any information regarding the same, answer choice B should be the best criticism.

Kindly let me know your views and approach.
I seem to be getting such questions almost always wrong. Can someone suggest me as to where am I going wrong?

Thanks.

B is wrong because even if you had that information, what could you do? you need more info. don't you? Let's say avg. tenure is 5 years, so what? You'll need additional info. to pin point the fallacy in the argument, don't you? As a matter of fact we only that avg age is high now than was 20 yrs. ago.


C is clear as it deals with sample size but here also one has to be cautious. The problem states that the sample size is large enough which is good but it is not representative of different companies, especially the ones that are younger than 20
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by sameke » Wed Feb 04, 2009 5:40 pm
Hey, If you have time try to solve LSAT critical reasoning problems. After those you will find these questions much easier.
As for this question:

(C) The information is based only on companies that have been operating for at least 20 years.

is the only one that can cast doubt on the conclusion. Because if you compare the facts. Conclusion: CEO's are older now, but the sample of the research has not changed and i think it is safe to assume that most of the CEO's are still holding their position. On the other hand, there might be many other young companies with young CEO's started meanwhile. So, that is how I thought it was c the answer.
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by jaymin » Thu Feb 05, 2009 9:47 am
Thank you everybody for the help. I think I will practice a couple of LSAT questions. I have 3 weeks to go and CR is my weak area. I will need to work more on it.
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by jaymin » Thu Feb 05, 2009 9:48 am
Thank you everybody for the help. I think I will practice a couple of LSAT questions. I have 3 weeks to go and CR is my weak area. I will need to work more on it.
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by bhumika.k.shah » Mon Jan 25, 2010 11:29 am
Gosh before looking at these answer explanations i actually thought that B was irrelevant!
coz nowhere in the stimulus does it talk abt this...

I also marked B as my answer option :-(

Thanks guys! :D
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