Critical Reasoning

The psotal service is badly mismanged. 40 years ago, first-class letter delivery costs only 3 cents. Since then, the price has increased nearly ten-fold, with an actual decrease in the speed and the reliability of the service.

all the following weakens the above argument except:

a) the average delivery time for a first-class letter 4 decades ago was atually slightly longer than it is today.

b) The average level of consumer prices overall has increased over more than 300 percent over the last 40 years.

the answer here is quite clear. However my doubt here is something else. A states a point that is quite contradicting the premise of the argument 'actual decrease in the speed'. This brings back the question to me that has been lying in my subconscious mind sinfce i started doing CRs. In Critical Reasoning, an answer choice shdn't contradict a premise aight? please let me know.

Hi kiranlegend...To make it brief..

I will say that there are two major categories of question stems in CR...(there r few more )..

A. Strenthen or weaken B. Derive/justify the conclusion

In strengthen / weaken question..

the premise /argument in the stimulus is in doubt..

So we can expect to see any new info. in the answer choices that will act as additional premise to help strenthen or weaken the question..

Thus A is the addtional info. here..(But we have to find out the one that weakens the most and the one which is not out of scope)

#In second category " Derive/justify the conclusion "..

We have to take the premise as it is.. The argument is not into question but it is taken as a fact...

So you wont find contradicting answers choices here
( If you find.. eliminate them..they are out of scope)..

I hope this helps...

Thx..

raunekk wrote:Hi kiranlegend...To make it brief..

I will say that there are two major categories of question stems in CR...(there r few more )..

A. Strenthen or weaken B. Derive/justify the conclusion

In strengthen / weaken question..

the premise /argument in the stimulus is in doubt..

So we can expect to see any new info. in the answer choices that will act as additional premise to help strenthen or weaken the question..

Thus A is the addtional info. here..(But we have to find out the one that weakens the most and the one which is not out of scope)

#In second category " Derive/justify the conclusion "..

We have to take the premise as it is.. The argument is not into question but it is taken as a fact...

So you wont find contradicting answers choices here
( If you find.. eliminate them..they are out of scope)..

I hope this helps...

Thx..

thanks so much mate, your explanation is appreciable.

just a small clarfication from your input for confirmation: 'the premise /argument in the stimulus is in doubt..

So we can expect to see any new info. in the answer choices that will act as additional premise to help strenthen or weaken the question..'

1) from the argument i am taking out a trimmed part: 'with an actual decrease in the speed' ------------- this is presented as a premise/fact in the given argument.

2) A is :'the average delivery time for a first-class letter 4 decades ago was atually slightly longer than it is today.'

1 says that the spped of the postal service has decreased now when compared with 4 decades ago. Whereas, 2 says that 4 decades ago the average delivery time was longer.

So my final questions on this issue are: Are 1 and 2 contradicting? If so, 2 which is an answer choice can question the premise 1? I know you said this in your post.. just wanna make sure to get it right. pls do this last favour on this question

hi kiranlegend,,,will surely ans ur last question

A does provide new info..And can be used to weaken .(Only in strengthen and weaken)..But we also have to keep in mind the scope and the main point of the argument...

Here in my opinion there are two things,for which i will not choose A..

"A:the average delivery time for a first-class letter 4 decades ago was atually slightly longer than it is today. "

Here,

Argument talks about "reduction in speed "of postal system in general (with an actual decrease in the speed )......and not abt speed of "first class letters"...this is one things that refrains me from selecting A..

Secondly, as you can see the main argument is about the cost..so answer choice should be related to cost./prices...

I hope this helps...

thx..

thanks so much for your patience it's awesome to have you here..

where is other options?

NSNguyen wrote:where is other options?

mate, that will be tedious for me.. hehe coz on my MS WORD, i can't perform anyother operations other than viewing it..

anyway the question is from 1000 series.. Section D or part D 7th question:)