Critical Reasoning

The "suicide wave" that followed the United States stock market crash of October 1929 is more legend than fact. Careful examination of the monthly figures on the causes of death in 1929 shows that the number of suicides in October and in November was comparatively low. In only three other months were the monthly figures lower. During the summer months, when the stock market was flourishing, the number of suicides was substantially higher.
Which one of the following, if true, would best challenge the conclusion of the passage?
(A) The suicide rate is influenced by many psychological, interpersonal, and societal factors during any given historical period.
(B) October and November have almost always had relatively high suicide rates, even during the 1920s and 1930s.
(C) The suicide rate in October and November of 1929 was considerably higher than the average for those months during several preceding and following years.
(D) During the years surrounding the stock market crash, suicide rates were typically lower at the beginning of any calendar year than toward the end of that year.
(E) Because of seasonal differences, the number of suicides in October and November of 1929 would not be expected to be the same as those for other months.

Answer is C
Something that explains the discrepancy why inspite of Low suicide rates in Oct and Nov relative to the rates in the other months , the period is still referred to as suicide wave

Hi Munda,

I found this question as a junk
1) What are summer months in USA?
2) what is calender year April or January?

People who wants to commit suicide will commit suicide as soon as they found the market crash. why will they wait for six months and then die.

Do I need to know about USA in order to attack some of GMAT questions?

1)You dont need to know what precisely are the summer months
2)It means the last year according to official calendar
You can answer the question without having good knowledge of US Holidays/Months
You have to solve this CR with a bird s eye view of things .

HSPA wrote:Hi Munda,

I found this question as a junk
1) What are summer months in USA?
2) what is calender year April or January?

People who wants to commit suicide will commit suicide as soon as they found the market crash. why will they wait for six months and then die.

Do I need to know about USA in order to attack some of GMAT questions?

I havent understood this well... I am sorry for the fools who committed suicide thinking that money is all in life

Need to ping either David or Mitch for clear explanation...

I think C should be the answer. Only A & C are contender, B, D & E are out of scope.

C is better than A as A will somehow strengthen the argument by giving other reasons of suicide and C is stressing that the suicide is due to stock market crashes because the average suicide for many years during the period is very low

HSPA wrote:I havent understood this well... I am sorry for the fools who committed suicide thinking that money is all in life

Need to ping either David or Mitch for clear explanation...

Money sometimes is a lot

OA is C.

Received a PM on this one.

This is indeed an LSAT question it is from October of 1991, the first logical reasoning section, #14.

It is a weaken question. Remember that any question that casts doubt or says anything negative in the question stem is a weaken.

So we want to weaken the conclusion that "suicide wave was more legend than fact." In other words the conclusion is that there was no suicide wave.

The most important premise is that the compared to other months in 1929 the number of suicides in October and November (so just after the crash) was low. The part about the summer months does not actually matter. Try not to get caught up in the details of the "background information" on a question like this.

Now we need to weaken the link between the idea that October and November suicide rates were low compared to the rest of 1929 and the idea that there was not a "Suicide wave." As mundasingh has quite correctly pointed out answer choice C has shifted the comparison. We are now longer looking at October and November compared to the rest of 1929 but instead are comparing to the typical October and November.

I will agree with HSPA that this is not the finest LSAT question ever written. The "modern" LSAT only began in 1991 - the year that this question appeared on the LSAT. I do not believe that this question would stand any chance of being on the LSAT now. The subject is strange and the question a little weird. That said, we can go to C as the only one that weakens the link between the premise and the conclusion.

@David@VeritasPrep: An observation about LSAT questions ->

Somehow I find LSAT questions easier than GMAT questions mainly first 15 questions. If you look at the question above, in one go answer pops out easily; however, GMAT questions tough ones are more convoluted. Of course, last 10 LSAT questions of any series are very hard but mostly comprise of assumption questions etc.

What is your take David about this?

For example OG12 Q122. I find ,in particular,the incorrect answer choices A and B very challenging. And what do you think could be the best way to deal with answer choices like A and B ?

The spacing of the four holes on a fragment of a bone flute excavated at a Neanderthal campsite is just what is required to play the third through sixth notes of the diatonic scale-the seven-note musical scale used in much of Western music since the Renaissance. Musicologists therefore hypothesize that the diatonic musical scale was developed and used thousands of years before it was adopted by Western musicians. Which of the following, if true, most strongly supports the hypothesis?

(A) Bone flutes were probably the only musical instrument made by Neanderthals.
(B) No musical instrument that is known to have used a diatonic scale is of an earlier date than
the flute found at the Neanderthal campsite.
(C) The flute was made from a cave-bear bone and the campsite at which the flute fragment was
excavated was in a cave that also contained skeletal remains of cave bears.
(D) Flutes are the simplest wind instrument that can be constructed to allow playing a diatonic scale.
(E) The cave-bear leg bone used to make the Neanderthal flute would have been long enough
to make a flute capable of playing a complete diatonic scale

thanks david.. awesome explanation !!

GMATMadeEasy wrote:@David@VeritasPrep: An observation about LSAT questions ->

Somehow I find LSAT questions easier than GMAT questions mainly first 15 questions. If you look at the question above, in one go answer pops out easily; however, GMAT questions tough ones are more convoluted. Of course, last 10 LSAT questions of any series are very hard but mostly comprise of assumption questions etc.

What is your take David about this?

I'm not David but I can tell you that in an LSAT logical reasoning section, questions 1 through 14 will be easier than the rest. And, questions 15 through 21 tend to be the most difficult. Of course, there will be some outliers. For example, even in the first 14 questions, there will be at least one tough one. And even in the danger zone (15 through 21), there may be an easy one.

If you're using an LSAT logical reasoning section to prep for GMAT, note that each section is 8 pages, and here is a rough guide to difficulty level:

pages 1-2--easiest
pages 3-4--easy
pages 5-6--hardest
pages 7-8--hard

***

To answer your other question, you will find (A) and (B) of your posted question much easier to eliminate (or to set aside as you look for the right answer) if you have the argument clearly paraphrased in your head. We don't want long sentences in our head, that' just confusing. Paraphrasing means expressing the ideas as concisely as possible without distorting them. The argument can be paraphrased as:

"Because all you need to play a portion of the diatonic scale is a Neanderthal bone flute, the diatonic scale must be very old."

Now look at the choices, searching aggressively for something that backs that argument up:

(A)do we care whether they used other instruments?(...no, we care about how long the diatonic scale has been around for)...eliminate or keep looking

(B)we already knew that the Neanderthal bone flute is capable of using (a portion of) the diatonic scale; that it is the oldest instrument known to do so does not confirm or strengthen the idea that the diatonic scale is very old...eliminate or if you're not sure, set this one aside and keep looking for something better...way better off to keep moving looking for the right answer--one that matches your analysis--than to drown in an ambiguous one!

(C) "also contained skeletal remains of cave bears"--who cares!!...eliminate

(D) "simplest"--we care about age not simplicity...eliminate

(E) wow, they can also make flutes that play the COMPLETE diatonic scale. That definitely strengthens the idea that Neanderthals may have been playing the diatonic scale (and that it therefore has been around longer than Western civilization).

If we plug this answer choice into the argument (in the middle of the two sentences), the argument is clearly strengthened. (Therefore, (e) is correct.)

crimson2283 wrote:The "suicide wave" that followed the United States stock market crash of October 1929 is more legend than fact. Careful examination of the monthly figures on the causes of death in 1929 shows that the number of suicides in October and in November was comparatively low. In only three other months were the monthly figures lower. During the summer months, when the stock market was flourishing, the number of suicides was substantially higher.
Which one of the following, if true, would best challenge the conclusion of the passage?
(A) The suicide rate is influenced by many psychological, interpersonal, and societal factors during any given historical period.
(B) October and November have almost always had relatively high suicide rates, even during the 1920s and 1930s.
(C) The suicide rate in October and November of 1929 was considerably higher than the average for those months during several preceding and following years.
(D) During the years surrounding the stock market crash, suicide rates were typically lower at the beginning of any calendar year than toward the end of that year.
(E) Because of seasonal differences, the number of suicides in October and November of 1929 would not be expected to be the same as those for other months.

I received a PM asking me to comment.

I have just one piece of advice to add to David's fine response:

Learn to recognize the common assumptions and understand how to weaken and strengthen each type.

The argument above makes an analogy. It compares the suicide rate in Oct/Nov 1929 with the rest of 1929. To weaken an analogy, we need to show that the comparison isn't valid.

Answer choice C does just what we need. It shows that a comparison between Oct/Nov 1929 and the rest of 1929 is irrelevant. What matters is how the suicide rate in Oct/Nov 1929 compares to the rates in other years. If the rate in 1929 was higher, then there was in fact a suicide wave in 1929 and the conclusion of the argument -- that the wave never took place -- is invalid.

Testluv wrote:

GMATMadeEasy wrote:@David@VeritasPrep: An observation about LSAT questions ->

Somehow I find LSAT questions easier than GMAT questions mainly first 15 questions. If you look at the question above, in one go answer pops out easily; however, GMAT questions tough ones are more convoluted. Of course, last 10 LSAT questions of any series are very hard but mostly comprise of assumption questions etc.

What is your take David about this?

I'm not David but I can tell you that in an LSAT logical reasoning section, questions 1 through 14 will be easier than the rest. And, questions 15 through 21 tend to be the most difficult. Of course, there will be some outliers. For example, even in the first 14 questions, there will be at least one tough one. And even in the danger zone (15 through 21), there may be an easy one.

If you're using an LSAT logical reasoning section to prep for GMAT, note that each section is 8 pages, and here is a rough guide to difficulty level:

pages 1-2--easiest
pages 3-4--easy
pages 5-6--hardest
pages 7-8--hard

***

???
But arent there 2 sections dedicated to CR on the LSAT . 1 section has 24 questions and the other 26 questions

@munda:

Usually, yes. And in both cases, my comments in the post apply!

Gotta go with TestLuv on this one...it is true that on the LSAT the 2 Logical Reasoning sections can have between 24 and 26 questions (let's just say an average of 25).

So you would think that the questions 23, 24, 25 would be the toughest -- not true! As TestLuv has said the toughest questions are in that area up to 21 or 22. The three or so questions at the end of the section are actually a little easier than those from say 15 to 21. This is because so many people get caught up on the way to the end that the last three or so questions people guess, leave them blank, or are so rushed that these questions are missed by about 1/2 of the people or more despite not being as tough.

Leave it to me to take multiple paragraphs just to agree with another GMAT expert!!
If you ever do take the LSAT itself and if you are rushed and never seem to finish 25 questions in 35 minutes (a wicked pace!) you might take the advice I sometimes give struggling students, go through the first 16 questions and the jump to the end of section, question 25 or so, and work backwards. Questions from 17 to 21 are so hard that students often miss these and it is better to be rushed on these than the last 3 or so questions, which they could often get right if they had the time.

Assuming you are not taking the LSAT - this is a GMAT website after all - you would want to understand that those questions from say 16 or 17 to 21 or 22 are going to often be unlike what is on the GMAT.

As to the question posed from the GMAT - TestLuv has tackled the mighty cave bear. I would simply add this, don't get distracted or intimidated.

Putting this in terms of conclusion and MIP - the conclusion is that "the diatonic musical scale was developed and used thousands of years before it was adopted by Western musicians" (namely it was developed and used by the Neanderthal.

The MIP (most important premise) is the archeological find - the bone flute fragment that plays a portion of the scale. So we want to link these things together. As TestLuv says, with the knowledge that they had a bone long enough for the whole flute we strengthen.