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Doubt in CR

by gauravgundal » Wed Sep 22, 2010 7:29 am
The state legislature has proposed a new law that would provide a tax credit to people who install alarm system in their homes. Members of the legislature claim that the mew law will reduce crime ,citing studies showing that crime rates fall as the percentage of homes with alarm system rises

Which of the following ,if true would cast the most doubt on the claim that the new law will reduce crime ?

B. The amount of the tax credit is so low relative to the cost of alarm systems that very few people will install alarm systems to obtain this credit

C. Neighborhood crime prevention programs can reduce crime as effectively as alarm systems can.

Source Kaplan

[spoiler]OA : B[/spoiler]

Why C is incorrect? We can predict from C that some other program has caused reduction in crime rates.
Expert please give us your valuable comments on this .
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by lkm » Wed Sep 22, 2010 7:36 am
Watch for the modifiers.

Options (C) says that it CAN reduce... means if the program is implement then it may reduce the crime. But nothing provides about program implementation.

However, option (B) has strong reason that why people will not be interested in installing the new alarm system.
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by gmatrix » Wed Sep 22, 2010 7:48 am
hi........in weaken questions new...unrelated information in answer choices should be avoided.....Neighborhood crime prevention programs falls in this category..
the ans is B

the argument is that a new law providing tax credit to people... who install alarm system will reduce crime but what if the alarm cost is much more than the tax credit and the people don't install the new alarms....then the whole argument falls apart..hence ans is B
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by KapTeacherEli » Wed Sep 22, 2010 1:31 pm
gauravgundal wrote:The state legislature has proposed a new law that would provide a tax credit to people who install alarm system in their homes. Members of the legislature claim that the new law will reduce crime ,citing studies showing that crime rates fall as the percentage of homes with alarm system rises

Which of the following ,if true would cast the most doubt on the claim that the new law will reduce crime ?

B. The amount of the tax credit is so low relative to the cost of alarm systems that very few people will install alarm systems to obtain this credit

C. Neighborhood crime prevention programs can reduce crime as effectively as alarm systems can.

Source Kaplan

[spoiler]OA : B[/spoiler]

Why C is incorrect? We can predict from C that some other program has caused reduction in crime rates.
Expert please give us your valuable comments on this .
Hi Guarav,

You're looking for a cause-effect special scenario. This is extremely common on the GMAT: the author will cite two things that happened at the same time, or that a study appears to link. He or she will then go on to state that because they correlate, one must cause the other. Were that error present in the question stem, answer (C) would be correct.

However:
Members of the legislature claim that the new law will reduce crime
cast the most doubt on the claim that the new law will reduce crime ?
The prompt, as we see it, is not dealing with two simultaneous events. In fact, nothing has happened--they are predicting the future. The legislature predicts that they will reduce crime via this tax credit to encourage alarm systems. The correct answer, therefore, will somehow suggest that their plan will fail and the crime rate will not drop. If another thing might ALSO work, that tells us nothing about whether THIS plan will. (B) might bring into question the wisdom of acting on the legislature's prediction, but does not affect the legislatures accuracy--it is therefore not the right answer to this question.
Eli Meyer
Kaplan GMAT Teacher
Cambridge, MA
www.kaptest.com/gmat

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