Critical Reasoning

In a recent psychological survey, participants aged 40 to 60 were asked to name the song that had made the greatest emotional impact on their lives. Remarkably, in 86 percent of cases, the participant named a song that was popular when he or she was between thirteen and seventeen years old. Clearly, music has an inherently greater emotional effect on teenagers than on people of other ages.

Each of the following, if true, weakens the argument presented above EXCEPT

A) All of the other questions asked during the survey centered around the participants' teenage years.


B) People are more likely to have deeper emotional responses to life events, and to associate contemporaneous songs with those events, during the teenage years than at other times of life.

C) People tend to retain and recall emotionally infused memories with greater depth, detail, and accuracy than other memories.

D) People tend to listen to a much greater number of songs during the teenage years than at other times of life.

E) Most of the songs cited by the survey respondents retained their popularity for twenty or more years.

Is OA D?

In a recent psychological survey, participants aged 40 to 60 were asked to name the song that had made the greatest emotional impact on their lives. Remarkably, in 86 percent of cases, the participant named a song that was popular when he or she was between thirteen and seventeen years old. Clearly, music has an inherently greater emotional effect on teenagers than on people of other ages.

Each of the following, if true, weakens the argument presented above EXCEPT

A) All of the other questions asked during the survey centered around the participants' teenage years.
>> this weakens the argument by saying that the questionnaire was centereda round the teeange years of respondents


B) People are more likely to have deeper emotional responses to life events, and to associate contemporaneous songs with those events, during the teenage years than at other times of life.
>> this weakens the argument by saying that people will have in general more emotional response to their teeange events irreespective of music impact during teenage

C) People tend to retain and recall emotionally infused memories with greater depth, detail, and accuracy than other memories.
>> this strengths the argument by saying that people were more infused with the songs during their teeange and hence remember more accurately --hold onto this

D) People tend to listen to a much greater number of songs during the teenage years than at other times of life.
>> this weakens the argument that people listened to songs more during their teeange hence can not have emotional impact from music during any other age

E) Most of the songs cited by the survey respondents retained their popularity for twenty or more years.
>> lets take 20 years..so 40-20 = repsondent's age would have been 20 years when they listened to songs..where the statement makes a cieling of 17 years..hence could be as well the answer

out of C and E-- i would go for C as E is more of calculation flaw where as C totally strengths the argument.

any further suggestions ?? i may be completely wrong in my line of approach hence look forward for mroe discussion..

Down to C and E.

While C seems neutral, E seems to strengthen. Hence my pick is E.

OA: C
Source: MGMAT CAT 6 700-800 Level

OE: (C) CORRECT. Reasonable people might disagree as to whether this choice is irrelevant or whether it strengthens the conclusion; either way, it does not weaken the conclusion. If people have better recollection of memories that are more emotionally intense, then the conclusion in the passage -- that music is remembered best when it was most emotionally potent -- is supported by this choice.

(E) If this statement is true, then most of these songs would have been popular for a substantial time before and/or after the participant's teenage years, too. In that case, even though those songs were popular when the participants were teenagers, they were also popular during other periods of the participants' lives; we don't know at what age the cited song impacted that participant specifically.

Thanks alex for clarifying option E. i missed the keyword 20 years or MORE.

IMO C