Critical Reasoning

Onell wrote:

Testluv wrote:

Does Questionable assumption is it of the format "All the below are all assumptions EXCEPT"??

Hi gmatmachoman,

Definitely not. A "questionable assumption" is the same as any plain jane necessary assumption question. For the bank's technology to work, generally available scanners can't get better at scanning at small dots. If general scanners got better at scanning small dots (that is, if the size of the dots they are able to scan decreased), then the bank's technology/plan may fail. As such E is a necessary assumption for the argument.

The argument says contain dots too small to be accurately duplicated by any electronic scanner currently available; .... It talks only about the currently available scanner..furthermore the argument is open to the possibility that the scanner can get better in future and it doesn't say the problem will be gone forever.... so shouldn't option E be out of scope?

Am I missing sth?

Actually, your analysis is perfect...right up until the point where you conclude E is out of scope. We can certainly object that perhaps scanning equipment will improve. So, the author is assuming that:

scanning equipment will not improve

And:

improved scanning equipment = the machines being able to pick up smaller and smaller dots.

So, saying that author is assuming that scanning equipment will not improve is the same as saying that the author is assuming the machines will NOT be able to pick up smaller and smaller dots.

I need some further clarification on the question type.
How is 'questionable assumption' be the same as any assumption question? Though it is pretty clear that E is a necessary assumption,the nomenclature is not clear to me.

TheGraduate wrote:I need some further clarification on the question type.
How is 'questionable assumption' be the same as any assumption question? Though it is pretty clear that E is a necessary assumption,the nomenclature is not clear to me.

While the wording is different and while the idea that the assumption is questionable adds to the question a dimension not usually present in Assumption questions, getting the right answer to this question takes doing pretty much what one always does to find the answer to an assumption question, finding an assumption that has to be true in order for the plan, or argument, to work.

Meanwhile, it sounds as if you are getting overly caught up in GMAT methodology. The truth is that a common sense reading of the question reveals what you have to do in order to find the answer, determine which of the answer choices is a questionable assumption made by the creator of the plan. So whatever the question says, you can figure out what to do.

Thanks. But could you please explain the role of 'questionable'. To speak the truth, even I was thinking along the following lines:

Does Questionable assumption is it of the format "All the below are all assumptions EXCEPT"??

TheGraduate wrote:Thanks. But could you please explain the role of 'questionable'. To speak the truth, even I was thinking along the following lines:

Does Questionable assumption is it of the format "All the below are all assumptions EXCEPT"??

Oh ok.

This question is not at all an Except question.

This question would have worked fine were it to have asked

An assumption upon which the plan depends is?

or

An assumption of the plan is that

The "questionable" simply adds some information describing the nature of the assumption, and the presence of "questionable" changes little.

The assumption that you are looking for in order to answer this question is a questionable assumption, in other words an assumption characterized by a significant probability that it doesn't match reality.

To answer the question, you still just have to find an assumption upon which the plan depends.