Critical Reasoning

Videocassette recorders (VCRs) enable people to watch movies at home on videotape. People who own VCRs go to movie theaters more often than do people who do not own VCRs. Contrary to popular belief, therefore, owning a VCR actually stimulates people to go to movie theaters more often than they otherwise would.

The argument is most vulnerable to criticism on the grounds that it

(A) concludes that a claim must be false because of the mere absence of evidence in its favor

(B) cites in support of the conclusion evidence that is inconsistent with other information that is provided

(C) fails to establish that the phenomena interpreted as cause and effect are not both direct effects of some other factor

(D) takes a condition that by itself guarantees the occurrence of a certain phenomenon to be a condition that therefore must be met for that phenomenon to occur

(E) bases a broad claim about the behavior of people in general on a comparison between two groups of people that together include only a small proportion of people overall

Can someone explain Option D ?

mundasingh123 wrote:Videocassette recorders (VCRs) enable people to watch movies at home on videotape. People who own VCRs go to movie theaters more often than do people who do not own VCRs. Contrary to popular belief, therefore, owning a VCR actually stimulates people to go to movie theaters more often than they otherwise would.

The argument is most vulnerable to criticism on the grounds that it

(A) concludes that a claim must be false because of the mere absence of evidence in its favor

(B) cites in support of the conclusion evidence that is inconsistent with other information that is provided

(C) fails to establish that the phenomena interpreted as cause and effect are not both direct effects of some other factor

(D) takes a condition that by itself guarantees the occurrence of a certain phenomenon to be a condition that therefore must be met for that phenomenon to occur

(E) bases a broad claim about the behavior of people in general on a comparison between two groups of people that together include only a small proportion of people overall

Can someone explain Option D ?

C should be the correct answer in my opinion.

D should be incorrect, because it tries to link the "owning of VCR" and "going to movies" as "necessary" and "sufficient" conditions respectively. However, the argument uses a milder language - "more often than they would" and not "will certainly" which is not a necessary-sufficient type of causal relationship.

Does that help ?

stormier wrote:

mundasingh123 wrote:Videocassette recorders (VCRs) enable people to watch movies at home on videotape. People who own VCRs go to movie theaters more often than do people who do not own VCRs. Contrary to popular belief, therefore, owning a VCR actually stimulates people to go to movie theaters more often than they otherwise would.

The argument is most vulnerable to criticism on the grounds that it

(A) concludes that a claim must be false because of the mere absence of evidence in its favor

(B) cites in support of the conclusion evidence that is inconsistent with other information that is provided

(C) fails to establish that the phenomena interpreted as cause and effect are not both direct effects of some other factor

(D) takes a condition that by itself guarantees the occurrence of a certain phenomenon to be a condition that therefore must be met for that phenomenon to occur

(E) bases a broad claim about the behavior of people in general on a comparison between two groups of people that together include only a small proportion of people overall

Can someone explain Option D ?

C should be the correct answer in my opinion.

D should be incorrect, because it tries to link the "owning of VCR" and "going to movies" as "necessary" and "sufficient" conditions respectively. However, the argument uses a milder language - "more often than they would" and not "will certainly" which is not a necessary-sufficient type of causal relationship.

Does that help ?

Thanks stormier for the reply.Well i didnt understand ur reply well.I think option D is what in Gmat Lingo would be called Convoluted .I was trying to understand how to interpret Option D literally.
takes a condition that by itself guarantees the occurrence of a certain phenomenon to be a condition that therefore must be met for that phenomenon to occur
This is intimidating

mundasingh123 wrote:

stormier wrote:

mundasingh123 wrote:Videocassette recorders (VCRs) enable people to watch movies at home on videotape. People who own VCRs go to movie theaters more often than do people who do not own VCRs. Contrary to popular belief, therefore, owning a VCR actually stimulates people to go to movie theaters more often than they otherwise would.

The argument is most vulnerable to criticism on the grounds that it

(A) concludes that a claim must be false because of the mere absence of evidence in its favor

(B) cites in support of the conclusion evidence that is inconsistent with other information that is provided

(C) fails to establish that the phenomena interpreted as cause and effect are not both direct effects of some other factor

(D) takes a condition that by itself guarantees the occurrence of a certain phenomenon to be a condition that therefore must be met for that phenomenon to occur

(E) bases a broad claim about the behavior of people in general on a comparison between two groups of people that together include only a small proportion of people overall

Can someone explain Option D ?

C should be the correct answer in my opinion.

D should be incorrect, because it tries to link the "owning of VCR" and "going to movies" as "necessary" and "sufficient" conditions respectively. However, the argument uses a milder language - "more often than they would" and not "will certainly" which is not a necessary-sufficient type of causal relationship.

Does that help ?

Thanks stormier for the reply.Well i didnt understand ur reply well.I think option D is what in Gmat Lingo would be called Convoluted .I was trying to understand how to interpret Option D literally.
takes a condition that by itself guarantees the occurrence of a certain phenomenon to be a condition that therefore must be met for that phenomenon to occur
This is intimidating

The answer choice is trying to say that - "owning of VCR" is a necessary condition and "going to movies" sufficient. In necessary-sufficient arguments, the occurence of necessary condition guarantees the occurence of sufficient condition.

For the answer choice D - is the author trying to say that owning of VCR guarantees going to movies ? No.

Although I haven't taken the GMAT, I'm yet to see such a convoluted sentence in either OG or GMATPrep questions. I would not worry too much. You could call that a "convoluted LSAT lingo"