Critical Reasoning

In order to compensate for rising costs within the state prison system, one state legislator recommends increasing the amount of money allotted to state prisons by ten percent per prisoner. The legislator claims that this will increase the overall budget for the prison system by ten percent in the coming years.

On which of the following assumptions does the legislator's argument depend?

(A) The rising costs within the state prison system are not the result of an increase in the number of prisoners in the system.

(B) The total number of prisoners in the state prison system will not decrease in upcoming years.

(C) The number of people who are sentenced to non-prison sentences, like community service, rather than prison sentences, will not increase.

(D) The total number of prisons in use in the state will not decrease from its current level.

(E) The average number of prisoners in each prison will not decrease in the coming years.


OA later.

B
right?

Held between B and E. but i would choose B over E.

IMO E. Since it is related to the "increase the overall budget for the prison system by ten percent in the coming years." the legislator assumes that the average population will not decrease and remain constant. Whereas if the total prisoner population spikes to a higher level then the overall budget may exceed the ten percent mark.

Hi,

E should be incorrect over B since the average number of prisoners/prison does not tell us about the total figure. It may be a case in which all prisons in the state are closed except 1. In this case the budget will substantially increase or decrease based on the occupancy of 1 prison. Similarly if several new prisons open up we may have another unknown figure for cost/person increase or decrease.

So choose B over E which negates the possibility that the total number of prisoners will decrease and hence costs will shoot up by an exact 10%.

[spoiler]IMO: B[/spoiler]

Argument: 10% budget increase for each prisoner will increase the overall budget by 10%.

The gap I see here is => Author is driving total budget of prison from each prisoner budget.


(A) The rising costs within the state prison system are not the result of an increase in the number of prisoners in the system.
--> This actually weakens the argument. Rising cost were at some part because of increased number of prisoners, Otherwise Author would not have been making an argument.

(B) The total number of prisoners in the state prison system will not decrease in upcoming years.


(C) The number of people who are sentenced to non-prison sentences, like community service, rather than prison sentences, will not increase.
> Irrelevant.

(D) The total number of prisons in use in the state will not decrease from its current level.
> Talk out of scope stuff.

(E) The average number of prisoners in each prison will not decrease in the coming years.
> Increase the scope to each prison, whereas argument talks about state prison system only.

Though I am not very convinced with option B, but by POE B looks an answer. Lets see how experts explain the argument.

IMO B

for the prison system is the tricky word here. It does not include prisons as well; but only prisioners.

(E) The average number of prisoners in each prison will not decrease in the coming years.
Av number of prisoners = Total number of prisioners/prisions

nominator and denominator may totally incraese by 10% but average could be same as previous. he does not assume this. He only assumes total number of prisionrs will increase

IMO B

IMO D

Option C talks about non-prison sentences like community service.

But how do we know that these non-prison sentences are not part of the
prison system?

If these non-prison sentences are part of the prison system,
the author must have assumed that they will not further be a burden on the budget,
and that the only consideration is the expenses relating to the prison-related
sentences.

I will go with B. When they are talking about amount per person, the avg doesn't matter thus ruling out E.

OA not posted till now. I will also choose option B over E

The OA is B

Posting only OAs and IMOs are not ALL that is needed in an
interactive learning forum.

Please I'd be glad for a response to the point I raised in my last post.

Regards.

gmatdriller, I was firstly thinking the same way as you, but now I suppose that by saying "NON-prison sentences" the author assumes that they are NOT a part of a prison system.