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School Smoking

by Ludacrispat26 » Tue Oct 20, 2009 9:04 pm
From Princeton Review's 2010 "Cracking the GMAT:"

A system-wide county school anti-smoking education program was instituted last year. The program was clearly a success. Last year, the incidence of students smoking on school premises decreased by over 70 percent.

Which of the following, if true, would most seriously weaken the argument in the passage?

(A) The author of this statement is a school system official hoping to generate good publicity for the anti-smoking program.
(B) Most students who smoke stopped smoking on school premises last year continued to smoke when away from school.
(C) Last year, another policy change made it much easier for students to leave and return to school grounds during the school day.
(D) The school system spent more on anti-smoking education programs last year than it did in all previous years.
(E) The amount of time students spent in anti-smoking education programs last year resulted in a reduction of in-class hours devoted to academic subjects.

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I know that it seems like B was transcribed poorly, but it was really just written that poorly.

Anyway, the OA is C, but, despite the typo, why can't it be B?

Thanks all!
Last edited by Ludacrispat26 on Tue Oct 20, 2009 9:52 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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by Testluv » Tue Oct 20, 2009 9:14 pm
Hi Ludacrispat26,

I agree that the answer should be B. This argument has a simple structure. The first sentence provides background information. The second sentence is the conclusion. The third sentence is offered as support for that conclusion.

The assumption is that because the incidence of smoking on school premises has decreased, the kids have stopped smoking (given that it was an anti-smoking education program.) Choice B attacks this assumption by establishing that the majority of those who stopped smoking at school continued to smoke.

Choice A cannot be right because it deals with the motivations of the arguer. Any choice that deals with motivations and biases are automatically wrong unless the argument was specifically about motivations and biases.


Note: This does not sound like a GMAT question. The conclusion is ambiguous because "success" is open to multiple reasonable interpretations. If we interpret "success" to mean "stopped smoking", then the above line of reasoning is correct. If we interpret "success" to mean "decreased smoking", then B may not weaken the argument because even though they are not smoking at school as much, they are still smoking, and overall may be smoking less.

Actual GMAT questions are vetted and experimented on actual GMAT test-takers for exactly these kinds of issues.
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by Ludacrispat26 » Tue Oct 20, 2009 9:55 pm
Testluv wrote:Hi Ludacrispat26,

I agree that the answer should be B. This argument has a simple structure. The first sentence provides background information. The second sentence is the conclusion. The third sentence is offered as support for that conclusion.

The assumption is that because the incidence of smoking on school premises has decreased, the kids have stopped smoking (given that it was an anti-smoking education program.) Choice B attacks this assumption by establishing that the majority of those who stopped smoking at school continued to smoke.

Choice A cannot be right because it deals with the motivations of the arguer. Any choice that deals with motivations and biases are automatically wrong unless the argument was specifically about motivations and biases.


Note: This does not sound like a GMAT question. The conclusion is ambiguous because "success" is open to multiple reasonable interpretations. If we interpret "success" to mean "stopped smoking", then the above line of reasoning is correct. If we interpret "success" to mean "decreased smoking", then B may not weaken the argument because even though they are not smoking at school as much, they are still smoking, and overall may be smoking less.

Actual GMAT questions are vetted and experimented on actual GMAT test-takers for exactly these kinds of issues.

Testluv,

Thanks so much for the info, and just to note, the correct choice was actually C, not A. I apologize for the mistake. Does this still invalidate B? I would think not, as B seems like the logical answer either way.

Also, this is a Princeton Review question, which I would think is an extremely legitimate source. Am I wrong in this assumption?

Thanks again.
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by Testluv » Tue Oct 20, 2009 10:07 pm
Hi Ludacrispat26,

My apologies. C is definitely a weakener as it is pointing to an alternative explanation for why smoking has decreased on school premises. In fact, given the choices, it is likely the best answer.

However, I stand by my reasoning in my original post. If we interpret "success" to mean "stopped smoking", then B is also a weakener.

I think that Princeton Review is likely a fine source of practice materials, as it is the second largest test prep company. But this does not mean that they are infallible. In fact, even the test-maker will mis-design questions at times, which is why they have to test them on actual test-takers.
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by tanviet » Tue Oct 27, 2009 6:52 am
As testluv said B is wrong

if student do not smoke on campus but continue to smoke off campus, the program is still successful because before, student smoke both on campus and off campus

if author said that 70% quit smoking, B is a weakener

this kind of wrong answer is tricky. we can call this wrong question LOOK LIKE WEAK-NER, not WEAKENER understanding this kind of wrong answer, we can practice to create a question with this kind of wrong answer.

I am afraid of this wrong answer.
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by james33 » Sun May 15, 2016 9:50 pm
The official answer is B. But I don't understand why? Can anyone explain
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