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by rahulg83 » Sat Mar 07, 2009 10:45 am
In the past six pro football drafts, 4 out of 6 players selected by team A are now starting on the squad. On team B, only 2 o of the 6 players selected in the draft are starters. So, a football player selected by team A from the draft pool has a higher probability of becoming a starter than if he is selected by team B.

Which of the following, if true, would be the best reason to reject the argument?

A) Two of the four starters in team A are sons of the coach.
B) Team B has new owner and coaching staff.
C) Team B has a new state-of-art gym.
D) Team B pick is a quarterback, and the starting quarterback is retiring.
E) team A has had the first draft pick for the past six years, while team B had the last pick. This year it is reversed.

I picked A but the answer given is E citing the conclusion as: This year, the player selected by team B has a higher chance of becoming a starter than the player selected by team A.. :shock: I really couldn't understand the reasoning behind evaluating the argument. Can someone explain??

BTW this Q is from kaplan 2009..
Source: — Critical Reasoning |

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by dendude » Sat Mar 07, 2009 11:24 am
I think you might need a little understanding of the drafting process.
The team that gets a first pick in a draft usually gets to select the best available players and obviously the team that picks last will get the players that everyone left out (which could mean that they aren't so good).

What E says is that in all the previous years A got the first pick and hence got the better players that's why the players landed up as starters whereas B got the last pick.
This year its going to be reversed and B is going to go first and A last.
So the argument would not hold true that a player drafted by A has a better chance of starting than a player drafted by B.

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by rahulg83 » Sat Mar 07, 2009 11:34 am
dendude wrote:I think you might need a little understanding of the drafting process.
The team that gets a first pick in a draft usually gets to select the best available players and obviously the team that picks last will get the players that everyone left out (which could mean that they aren't so good).

What E says is that in all the previous years A got the first pick and hence got the better players that's why the players landed up as starters whereas B got the last pick.
This year its going to be reversed and B is going to go first and A last.
So the argument would not hold true that a player drafted by A has a better chance of starting than a player drafted by B.
Oh..so the author is concluding about this year's pick. Anyways, i was dead duck with regard to the drafting process you just mentioned. I never thought of analyzing in that way. Got it now..thanks...

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by odod » Mon Mar 09, 2009 11:16 am
Hello,

If you pick E, aren't you making an assumption on how the draft works? I believe this question is rather obvious to sports fans but strikes me that A could work too.

In my opionion, I haven't seen a question like this in my GMAT practice that makes an assumption about something (in this case the draft) that is not explicity stated. Infact, most of these answers are considered "out of the scope" of the argument.

Thoughts?
ODOD

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by delhiboy1979 » Tue Mar 10, 2009 1:39 am
I agree with odod here, we should not be expected to know how draft works. And for someone who doesnt I guess A is the only choice remaining.

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by rahulg83 » Tue Mar 10, 2009 8:40 am
I too am a sports fan, but never knew such thing as drafting...now in this case, one can not neglect what odod said in the post about assumption regarding the drafting process....i m in hanger now... :? .....in the answer explanation, it is mentioned that A can be a possibility, but these things do not happen in professional sports, maybe coach sons have inherited football skills from their father and are truly eligible to be picked in the team...now that's a bouncer.... :lol:...here why it has been assumed that sons are in the team coz of their skills and not coz their father is coach??

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by mason77 » Sat May 14, 2016 1:17 am
Option A looks good than other answers