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Verbal Sectional Test

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by samyak » Fri May 14, 2010 8:38 am
Newspaper editorial:

In an attempt to reduce the crime rate, the governor is getting tough on criminals and making prison conditions harsher. Part of this effort has been to deny inmates the access they formerly had to college-level courses. However, this action is clearly counter to the governor's ultimate goal, since after being released form prison, inmates who had taken such courses committed far fewer crimes overall than other inmates.

Which of the following is an assumption on which the argument depends?

A. Not being able to take college-level courses while in prison is unlikely to deter anyone from a crime that he or she might otherwise have committed.
B. Former inmates are no more likely to commit crimes than are members of the general population.
C. The group of inmates who chose to take college-level courses were not already less likely than other inmates to commit crimes after being released.
D. Taking high school level courses in prison has less effect on an inmate's subsequent behavior than taking college-level courses does.
E. The governor's ultimate goal actually is to gain popularity by convincing people that something effective is being done about crime.

Please help me answer this question. I opted for C.
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Source: — Critical Reasoning |

by sk818020 » Fri May 14, 2010 9:58 am
Are you saying that you were wrong in choosing C, or that you want a more solid understanding of why C is the correct answer?
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by sk818020 » Fri May 14, 2010 10:07 am
Stimulus summary:

Governer says making prisons harsher will cause crime rate to go down. A way the gov is making prison harhser is to remove college course oppurtunities. But, inmates who took the courses committed less crimes after their release than inmates who did not. Thus, the governors action would against his stated goal.

The assumption in the argument is that it was the courses that caused the prisoners to committ less crimes, not something else. The correct answer will address this assumption some way.

C is an example of this. It says the passage assumed that the prisoners who chose to take the classes were not already less likely to committ crimes once they left. You can test this by negating it. For example, the passage assumed that the prisoners who chose to take classes were already less likely to committ crimes when they left prison. If this were the case, would the author's conclusion make sense?

Hope this helps.

Thanks,


Jared
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by samyak » Fri May 14, 2010 11:03 am
That's exactly how I had reached the answer. But the OA is A.
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by sk818020 » Fri May 14, 2010 11:13 am
(A) makes sense with a more thorough reading.

(A) states; Not being able to take college-level courses while in prison is unlikely to deter anyone from a crime that he or she might otherwise have committed.

This can be rewritten as;

Not being able to take college-level courses while in prison is not likely to deter anyone from a crime that he or she might otherwise have committed.

or;

Being able to take college-level courses while in prison is likely to deter anyone from a crime that he or she might otherwise have committed.

or;

Taking college courses deters people from committing crimes. This is the central assumption to the argument. Without this there is no way the author could possible reach there conclusion. Answer C would be the answer if this were a strengthens the conclusion question.
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by analyst218 » Fri May 14, 2010 12:53 pm
samyak wrote:That's exactly how I had reached the answer. But the OA is A.
WRONG. OA is C.
I can't believe as to how many unreliable sources are out there, and how many ppl actually
use those in their studies..

just get the Official Guide, Verbal Guide, and Quant Guide, and keep working on the questions from those guides.
or mgmat, kaplan, etc.

forums and internet should be very supplemental.
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by sk818020 » Fri May 14, 2010 12:56 pm
Thanks, analyst. I thought it was suspicious.
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by paddle_sweep » Fri May 14, 2010 8:56 pm
What's the final OA and what's the source? I went for C.

Exactly,internet should act as an supplement. The sources should be reliable.
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