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Las Vegas clubs

by krishnapavan » Tue Jun 04, 2013 2:20 am

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A recent study of Las Vegas clubs showed that out of a large group of club-goers surveyed, those who visited clubs more than three times a week typically drank significantly more alcoholic beverages per club visit than those who attended clubs three times a week or less. Therefore, people trying to cut back on alcohol consumption in Las Vegas should limit their club-going to three times a week maximum.

Which of the following, if true, most seriously weakens the author's conclusion?

A. Las Vegas clubs offer drink specials to customers who frequent their clubs more than 3+ times a week.
B. The study's results only held up for Las Vegas clubs, not for clubs in other major cities in Nevada.
C. Many recovering alcoholics in Las Vegas formerly frequented clubs more than three times a week.
D. The study also showed that club-goers who attend clubs 3+ times a week, unlike those who attend less than three times a week, typically choose to visit upscale clubs which require two-drink minimums.
E.Drink coupons are extremely popular in Las Vegas clubs, and are typically distributed evenly to all patrons in Las Vegas clubs, though they must be used within a week of being distributed.
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by race2mba » Tue Jun 04, 2013 5:52 am

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The one that Weakens the Author's conclusion should foucs on the point that even with going <3 times a day to Clubs , the alcoholic consumption is not reduced.only Option that will do this is Option E
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by theunheardmelody » Tue Jun 04, 2013 6:42 am

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I will go with E since we need to prove that alcohol comsumption does not depend on how many times someons visits a club that week.
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by krishnapavan » Tue Jun 04, 2013 8:25 am

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OA is D
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by faraz_jeddah » Tue Jun 04, 2013 11:05 am

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krishnapavan wrote:OA is D
I think E is very misleading and tempting. It does not specify the effect of the coupons on the consumption of alcohol. I guess it would be wrong to assume the more coupons that are distributed the more alcohol is consumed.
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by Matt@VeritasPrep » Wed Jun 05, 2013 3:24 pm

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Let's clear this one up.

To solve a weaken question, I'd start with these three steps:

1: Identify the conclusion
Here it's "People in Las Vegas who are trying to cut back on their alcohol consumption shouldn't go to clubs more than three times a week."

2: NEGATE the conclusion
"People in Las Vegas who are trying to cut back on their alcohol consumption CAN STILL go to clubs more than three times a week."

3: Look for something that supports the NEGATION: here, an answer suggesting that going to clubs more than three times a week won't force you to overdrink.

(A) suggests that people who go more often will be tempted to buy more drinks ... clearly NOT what we want to hear if we're trying not to drink. (This, if anything, would STRENGTHEN the original argument.)

(B) is irrelevant, as the original conclusion is limited to Las Vegas.

(C) is irrelevant, as recovering alcoholics aren't necessarily the same thing as "people trying to cut back on alcohol consumption", or may only be a small portion of that group.

(D) is exactly what we want: it suggests another reason frequent clubgoers are drinking so much - they like to visit clubs with two-drink minimums! So, presumably we can avoid those places during our four to seven days a week at the club, making it safe for us to attend more often and not overdrink.

(E) is unhelpful, as we don't know how many coupons the typical clubgoer gets (if it's 1 a week, that wouldn't explain much, but if it's 10 a week, we may see why people are overdrinking), nor which clubgoers get them (frequent visitors or infrequent).

Knowing what you're looking for goes a long, long way on CR questions.
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by npalani07 » Tue Feb 18, 2014 9:30 am

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Hi Matt,

Will "2:NEGATE the conclusion & look for a Strengthen answer-choice" strategy work for any Weaken Question?
I have not come across such a Strategy before; So I would like to know what's your idea behind this Unusual strategy.
Please let me know.

Thanks,
Palaniappan
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by Matt@VeritasPrep » Thu Feb 20, 2014 2:50 pm

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npalani07 wrote:Hi Matt,

Will "2:NEGATE the conclusion & look for a Strengthen answer-choice" strategy work for any Weaken Question?
I have not come across such a Strategy before; So I would like to know what's your idea behind this Unusual strategy.
Please let me know.

Thanks,
Palaniappan
Yup, it's a viable approach to almost any weaken question. (It doesn't work well on Flaw questions, unfortunately.) It's actually the way I teach Weaken questions -- I discovered it while self-studying for the LSAT, and it worked so well for me that I've used it ever since. I don't know if anyone else uses it, but it's been good to me.
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by viciss » Mon Feb 23, 2015 11:11 pm

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I have a doubt in choice A

Lets say while choosing the clubs, one already knows that for 3+ stays you get free drinks then analcoholic goes for more number of stays - isnt that a weakener? Since the offer influences the choice of number of stays, the causality of "more stays -> more alcohol" doesnt hold firm

Please share your thoughts
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by DavidG@VeritasPrep » Tue Feb 24, 2015 5:23 am

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Boiled way down the argument is this:

Limit stays to three days or fewer to reduce alcohol consumption.

Now imagine that you're going to Vegas, and the scenario in answer choice A is true. Well, if you limit your stay to 3 days, you miss out on drink specials! That's entirely consistent with the argument that limiting your stay will lead to less alcohol consumption. Certainly not a weakener.
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Las Vegas clubs

by Mo2men » Thu Aug 24, 2017 10:06 am

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DavidG@VeritasPrep wrote:Boiled way down the argument is this:

Limit stays to three days or fewer to reduce alcohol consumption.

Now imagine that you're going to Vegas, and the scenario in answer choice A is true. Well, if you limit your stay to 3 days, you miss out on drink specials! That's entirely consistent with the argument that limiting your stay will lead to less alcohol consumption. Certainly not a weakener.
Dear David,

Can you shed light about choice 'C'? It is still unclear how it strengthens the conclusion, as per Veritas explanation.

Official Explanation

"The correct response is (D). One way to weaken an argument is to provide an alternate reason for the conclusion. If there's another reason those who party 3+ times a week also drink more alcohol per visit, then people who want to drink less alcohol might not necessarily need to limit their club-going. (D) weakens the conclusion by suggesting that the 3+ a week partiers visit upscale clubs which have minimums.

If it's the drink minimums that is causing more consumption of alcohol, then it's possible recovering alcoholics could choose to visit non-upscale clubs without drink minimums 3+ times a week and not be at risk of over-consuming alcoholic. Since the conclusion is only concerned with Las Vegas clubs, (B) is irrelevant. (A) helps explain the conclusion, but does not weaken it, while (C) strengthens the conclusion."

thanks for help
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Las Vegas Clubs

by DavidG@VeritasPrep » Thu Aug 24, 2017 12:59 pm

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Mo2men wrote:
DavidG@VeritasPrep wrote:Boiled way down the argument is this:

Limit stays to three days or fewer to reduce alcohol consumption.

Now imagine that you're going to Vegas, and the scenario in answer choice A is true. Well, if you limit your stay to 3 days, you miss out on drink specials! That's entirely consistent with the argument that limiting your stay will lead to less alcohol consumption. Certainly not a weakener.
Dear David,

Can you shed light about choice 'C'? It is still unclear how it strengthens the conclusion, as per Veritas explanation.

Official Explanation

"The correct response is (D). One way to weaken an argument is to provide an alternate reason for the conclusion. If there's another reason those who party 3+ times a week also drink more alcohol per visit, then people who want to drink less alcohol might not necessarily need to limit their club-going. (D) weakens the conclusion by suggesting that the 3+ a week partiers visit upscale clubs which have minimums.

If it's the drink minimums that is causing more consumption of alcohol, then it's possible recovering alcoholics could choose to visit non-upscale clubs without drink minimums 3+ times a week and not be at risk of over-consuming alcoholic. Since the conclusion is only concerned with Las Vegas clubs, (B) is irrelevant. (A) helps explain the conclusion, but does not weaken it, while (C) strengthens the conclusion."

thanks for help
Anytime we have a causality argument, there are two ways we can weaken it. First, it's possible that cause and effect are reversed. Alternatively, it's possible that there's a different underlying cause.

In this case, the argument - visiting a club more than 3 times per week leads to greater alcohol consumption - can be distilled using a simple arrow diagram.

Frequenting clubs more than 3 times week ---> greater alcohol consumption

D tells us that those who visited clubs more than 3 times a week tended to choose upscale clubs that had 2-drink minimums. Thus it was the two-drink minimum of upscale clubs that accounted for the greater alcohol consumption, rather than the fact patrons were at the clubs more often.

As an arrow diagram, it would look like this:

Frequented upscale clubs with 2-drink minimums ---> greater alcohol consumption.
Last edited by DavidG@VeritasPrep on Thu Aug 24, 2017 1:26 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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by Mo2men » Thu Aug 24, 2017 1:11 pm

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DavidG@VeritasPrep wrote:
Mo2men wrote:
DavidG@VeritasPrep wrote:Boiled way down the argument is this:

Limit stays to three days or fewer to reduce alcohol consumption.

Now imagine that you're going to Vegas, and the scenario in answer choice A is true. Well, if you limit your stay to 3 days, you miss out on drink specials! That's entirely consistent with the argument that limiting your stay will lead to less alcohol consumption. Certainly not a weakener.
Dear David,

Can you shed light about choice 'C'? It is still unclear how it strengthens the conclusion, as per Veritas explanation.

Official Explanation

"The correct response is (D). One way to weaken an argument is to provide an alternate reason for the conclusion. If there's another reason those who party 3+ times a week also drink more alcohol per visit, then people who want to drink less alcohol might not necessarily need to limit their club-going. (D) weakens the conclusion by suggesting that the 3+ a week partiers visit upscale clubs which have minimums.

If it's the drink minimums that is causing more consumption of alcohol, then it's possible recovering alcoholics could choose to visit non-upscale clubs without drink minimums 3+ times a week and not be at risk of over-consuming alcoholic. Since the conclusion is only concerned with Las Vegas clubs, (B) is irrelevant. (A) helps explain the conclusion, but does not weaken it, while (C) strengthens the conclusion."

thanks for help
Anytime we have a causality argument, there are two ways we can weaken it. First, it's possible that cause and effect are reversed. Alternatively, it's possible that there's a different underlying cause.

In this case, the argument - visiting a club more than 3 times per week leads to greater alcohol consumption - can be distilled using a simple arrow diagram.

Frequenting clubs more than 3 times week ---> greater alcohol consumption

C tells us that many people who frequented clubs more than 3 times a week were alcoholics. In this case, it's probably not the frequent trips to the club that's causing this group of people to drink more. Rather, it's the fact that they're alcoholics that's causing them to drink a lot and they happen to be doing so in clubs. In arrow diagram form, we have our alternative cause.

Alcoholism ---> greater alcohol consumption.
As I understand from you explanation, you found another cause to weaken the conclusion. However, choice C is not the right answer. Actually, I'm confused more than before.

What makes D the right answer? and what makes C wrong?
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by DavidG@VeritasPrep » Thu Aug 24, 2017 1:22 pm

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Mo2men wrote:
DavidG@VeritasPrep wrote:
Mo2men wrote:
DavidG@VeritasPrep wrote:Boiled way down the argument is this:

Limit stays to three days or fewer to reduce alcohol consumption.

Now imagine that you're going to Vegas, and the scenario in answer choice A is true. Well, if you limit your stay to 3 days, you miss out on drink specials! That's entirely consistent with the argument that limiting your stay will lead to less alcohol consumption. Certainly not a weakener.
Dear David,

Can you shed light about choice 'C'? It is still unclear how it strengthens the conclusion, as per Veritas explanation.

Official Explanation

"The correct response is (D). One way to weaken an argument is to provide an alternate reason for the conclusion. If there's another reason those who party 3+ times a week also drink more alcohol per visit, then people who want to drink less alcohol might not necessarily need to limit their club-going. (D) weakens the conclusion by suggesting that the 3+ a week partiers visit upscale clubs which have minimums.

If it's the drink minimums that is causing more consumption of alcohol, then it's possible recovering alcoholics could choose to visit non-upscale clubs without drink minimums 3+ times a week and not be at risk of over-consuming alcoholic. Since the conclusion is only concerned with Las Vegas clubs, (B) is irrelevant. (A) helps explain the conclusion, but does not weaken it, while (C) strengthens the conclusion."

thanks for help
Anytime we have a causality argument, there are two ways we can weaken it. First, it's possible that cause and effect are reversed. Alternatively, it's possible that there's a different underlying cause.

In this case, the argument - visiting a club more than 3 times per week leads to greater alcohol consumption - can be distilled using a simple arrow diagram.

Frequenting clubs more than 3 times week ---> greater alcohol consumption

C tells us that many people who frequented clubs more than 3 times a week were alcoholics. In this case, it's probably not the frequent trips to the club that's causing this group of people to drink more. Rather, it's the fact that they're alcoholics that's causing them to drink a lot and they happen to be doing so in clubs. In arrow diagram form, we have our alternative cause.

Alcoholism ---> greater alcohol consumption.
As I understand from you explanation, you found another cause to weaken the conclusion. However, choice C is not the right answer. Actually, I'm confused more than before.

What makes D the right answer? and what makes C wrong?
Sorry about that - I wrote this in a rush. C speaks of what alcoholics had done formerly. But we're talking about a recent survey. So this information is irrelevant. I'll edit my previous post.
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by Mo2men » Fri Aug 25, 2017 12:23 am

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DavidG@VeritasPrep wrote: Sorry about that - I wrote this in a rush. C speaks of what alcoholics had done formerly. But we're talking about a recent survey. So this information is irrelevant. I'll edit my previous post.
Dear David,
Thanks for your ken replay and correction. But still my question: In Veritas official answer it is claimed that C STRENGTHEN the conclusion. How so? I understood as WEAKNER it as follows:

Many people who visited clubs 3+ recovered from alcohol addiction. So it is not necessarily to limit my visits to 3. I can go and enjoy my life and I will get recovered.

Regardless of the discussion, It took me hard time to understand D. I asked myself, what 2 minimum drinks had to do with someone? Are 2 strictly drinks can cause that damage for human or should take more? Even if I do not drink, my community or country does not have those drinkers to recognize the effect that much. Maybe you do understand me end but this is my view.
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