Critical Reasoning

David@VeritasPrep wrote:I am sorry to say it, but A is not the answer either!! The answer is C.

Here is why A is not "must be true."

A says,

The number of people who are not home repair technicians and who have been injured while attempting home repairs has increased

Now you know from the stimulus that there was "an increase in the number of injuries caused by people who have attempted home repairs themselves." Does this guarantee that the increased injuries is caused by an increased number of people getting injured? Maybe some people are getting injured more often.

Choice C is correct because we know that there has been "a decrease in revenue for home service technicians" this means they have less money so C has to be true... "C. The overall sale of online do-it-yourself home repair instructions by home service technicians has not been equal to the loss of revenue the technicians have incurred due to free offerings of this sort of material." That is why they have lost revenue.

OA is C.

Hi David,

I am still not getting why is C correct.

Isn't the material available for free online?

Are we assuming that home technicians might have sold the material online as well?

Can't this be the case that home technicians do the repair only by visiting homes and as the instructions are available online for free now, most people are not calling these technicians but are repairing on their own by following free online instructions?

Please clarify...

Your explanation fits perfectly with choice C!

Do you see it? If the online instructions are free then the repair technicians will certainly lose money, as we are told that they do. The on thing that is not acceptable is that the technicians make so much money from the sale of online instructions that they now have more revenue. So if everything online is free that is consistent with choice C. So there is not problem.

Also, you said.

Isn't the material available for free online?

But it does not say that all material is free right? It says the "rise in free material." So there is still the possibility of lots of people paying for such instructions. Choice C eliminates the possibility that repair techs are making tons of money with the online instructions.

So you see you really agree that C is correct!

Can't agree with C either. The argument just mentions that the rise in free, do-it-yourself instructions on the Internet for home repairs has led to a decrease in revenue for home service technicians and an increase in the number of injuries caused. This does not mean that home service technicians were selling services online. May be they never sold anything online. Their revenues shrunk just because of free stuff available online.

Option C - The overall sale of online do-it-yourself home repair instructions by home service technicians has not been equal to the loss of revenue the technicians have incurred due to free offerings of this sort of material." That is why they have lost revenue. Agreed that they lost revenue. But does not mean that they lost revenue through reduced online sales. Option C makes it mandatory that technicians were making online sales. This is not true. You have to change wordings here.