Critical Reasoning

Technological education is worsening. People between eighteen and twenty-four, who are just emerging from their formal education, are more likely to be technologically illiterate than somewhat older adults. And yet, issues for public referenda will increasingly involve aspects of technology.

Which of the following conclusions can be properly drawn from the statements above?

(A) If all young people are to make informed decisions on public referenda, many of them must learn more about technology.
(B) Thorough studies of technological issues and innovations should be made a required part of the public and private school curriculum.
(C) It should be suggested that prospective voters attend applied science courses in order to acquire a minimal competency in technical matters.
(D)If young people are not to be overly influenced by famous technocrats, they must increase their knowledge of pure science.
(E) On public referenda issues, young people tend to confuse real or probable technologies with impossible ideals.

OA:A

I know that this question has been covered on this forum before, but I want to reopen it.

I was stuck between A and B.

My problem with A is the very strong language of "if all people must make informed decisions", is the word all. Even if "many of them" do learn more about technology, it doesn't mean that EVERYONE will become more informed. Some people are unteachable.

I picked B, because it sounded more reasonable. The problem is that education in technology is bad. Making technology a required part of the curriculum is a reasonable measure to improve overall knowledge about this subjective?

student22 wrote:Technological education is worsening. People between eighteen and twenty-four, who are just emerging from their formal education, are more likely to be technologically illiterate than somewhat older adults. And yet, issues for public referenda will increasingly involve aspects of technology.

Which of the following conclusions can be properly drawn from the statements above?

(A) If all young people are to make informed decisions on public referenda, many of them must learn more about technology.
(B) Thorough studies of technological issues and innovations should be made a required part of the public and private school curriculum.
(C) It should be suggested that prospective voters attend applied science courses in order to acquire a minimal competency in technical matters.
(D)If young people are not to be overly influenced by famous technocrats, they must increase their knowledge of pure science.
(E) On public referenda issues, young people tend to confuse real or probable technologies with impossible ideals.

OA:A

I know that this question has been covered on this forum before, but I want to reopen it.

I was stuck between A and B.

My problem with A is the very strong language of "if all people must make informed decisions", is the word all. Even if "many of them" do learn more about technology, it doesn't mean that EVERYONE will become more informed. Some people are unteachable.

I picked B, because it sounded more reasonable. The problem is that education in technology is bad. Making technology a required part of the curriculum is a reasonable measure to improve overall knowledge about this subjective?

B is better than A

Yes, it should be A and not B. There can only be two conclusions for this stimulus.

1. Young people should be educated in technical know hows (since public referrenda refers to technology, or
2 Public referrenda should not include technical knowledge

We have A as a choice so A it is.

right, but I thought that the GMAT shys away from statements like "all" on questions that have a wide scope?

And why wouldn't you accept B as a conclusion? Isn't it saying the exact same thing as A but without the strong language?

Education in Tech is Bad --> Lack of informed voters --> improve tech education in schools --> make more informed voters.

student22 wrote:right, but I thought that the GMAT shys away from statements like "all" on questions that have a wide scope?

And why wouldn't you accept B as a conclusion? Isn't it saying the exact same thing as A but without the strong language?

Education in Tech is Bad --> Lack of informed voters --> improve tech education in schools --> make more informed voters.

goodpoint. I would have agreed with 'all' concept you mentioned had there not been 'if' iin the beginning. So it is not the same as saying all students. There is a condition 'if all students'.

I like A more than B since B does not have a mention of young people who, I think, need to be mentioned in the conclusion.

What is the OA btw.

I was stuck between A and B.

My problem with A is the very strong language of "if all people must make informed decisions", is the word all. Even if "many of them" do learn more about technology, it doesn't mean that EVERYONE will become more informed. Some people are unteachable.

I picked B, because it sounded more reasonable. The problem is that education in technology is bad. Making technology a required part of the curriculum is a reasonable measure to improve overall knowledge about this subjective?

The right answer to an inference question is something that necessarily follows from the stimulus.

From the stimulus we know that a) voters need technological knowledge in order to make good decisions on (upcoming) public referenda and b) that many young people lack this technologial knowledge.

So, if all young people are to ever make informed decisions on public referenda--not to say that they will for sure--but if they ever are to, then it is necessary for many of them to learn more about technology. This conclusion necessarily follows from the stimulus, and that's what choice A is saying.

Choice A is not saying that all young people will definitely be able to learn about technology (also, choice A is not saying that learning about technology will guarantee that they will be able to make informed public decisions.)

(More technically, the stimulus establishes that learning more about technology is a necessary but not a sufficient condition for young people making informed decisions about public referenda, and that's what choice A says. For example, gasoline is necessary for operating a car but having gas in the tank won't guarantee that you will be able to drive the car--the car miht lack some other necessary component such as non-flat tires or a functional transmission, etc).

Choice B is stating a recommendation (notice the keyword "should"). And because of the word "thorough", choice B's recommendation is strong or extreme. You should always be careful when judging whether a recommendation necessarily follows from a set of statements, especially where (as here) the statements are entirely descriptive, and especially where (as here) that recommendation is extreme.

Here, the stimulus definitely establishes a problem (viz: technologically illiterate young people who will not be able to make informed referenda decisions). But, we don't know whether choice B's strong recommendation necessarily follows: it could be that we can inculcate the necessary level of technological education without "thorough" studies of technological issues and innovations.

I think I understand now, I misinterpreted statement A by believing that it implied that this would guarantee that voters would be informed. But after reading your explanation, I agree, the language just doesn't support that. With that in mind, A does sound like a much better answer than B and is a more plausible scenario given the information in the question. Thanks for the great explanation, hopefully it'll help someone else stuck on this question in the future.

please explain optionC.
what is wrong with option C?
if the young ppl are likely to be technologically illiterate ,they should acquire minimal competency in technological matters

please explain optionC.
what is wrong with option C?
if the young ppl are likely to be technologically illiterate ,they should acquire minimal competency in technological matters

You're right they should...but should it necessarily be through attending courses on applied sciences? Wouldn't it be okay if they learned technological matters through some means other than attending courses on applied sciences? Of course it would. Thus, we can't quite infer choice C.

ohhh got it
thanks

Please explain option E. whats wrong with option E too?

People are young and they dont have good understanding of technology on public referenda issues so they tend to get confused with those matters.