Critical Reasoning

Hi all,

can you help with following CR question:

Famous personalities found guilty of many types of crimes in well-publicized trials are increasingly sentenced to the performance of community service, though unknown defendants convicted of similar crimes almost always serve prison sentences. However, the principle of equality before the law rules out using fame and publicity as relevant considerations in the sentencing of convicted criminals.

The statements above, if true, most strongly support which one of the following conclusions?
A.The principle of equality before the law is rigorously applied in only a few types of criminal trials.
B.The number of convicted celebrities sentenced to community service should equal the number of convicted unknown defendants sentenced to community service.
C.The principle of equality before the law can properly be overridden by other principles in some cases.
D.The sentencing of celebrities to community service instead of prison constitutes a violation of the principle of equality before the law in many cases.
E.The principle of equality before the law does not allow for leniency in sentencing.

In my opinion:
[spoiler]A. it is not directly supported.
B. The number of convicted celebrities is lower than the number of convicted unknown defendants so it is not supported.
C. There is no information about other rules in the passage.
D. It is the answer because "famous personalities found guilty of many types of crimes in well-publicized trials are increasingly sentenced to the performance of community service, though unknown defendants convicted of similar crimes almost always serve prison sentences."
E. This principle is about equality not about leniency in sentencing.[/spoiler]
Source: 300 GMAT CR questions with best solutions, www.beatthegmat.com
There was no answer

IMO d what is oa?

Hi,

Just want to know what should be startegy in Must be True questions? At first glance, all the answers looks fine to me

I will go with E.

A-> extreme chocie because of 'only'
B-> not a possible inference
C-> out of scope
D-> Seemed a good choice, but uses 'violation of principle of equality', which simply stated that fame and publicity are ruled out by law.

IMO C.

I know the OA id D here but I am confused with C.

D : says : a violation of the principle of equality

but C says :

C : the law is overridden by other principles ->

so if C is true then
(i) we can say that it is not a violation of the law. -> D out
(ii) it justifies the different results between celebrities and a comman man.

Please explain what's wrong with my thinking here.

Maciek wrote:Hi all,

can you help with following CR question:

Famous personalities found guilty of many types of crimes in well-publicized trials are increasingly sentenced to the performance of community service, though unknown defendants convicted of similar crimes almost always serve prison sentences. However, the principle of equality before the law rules out using fame and publicity as relevant considerations in the sentencing of convicted criminals.

The statements above, if true, most strongly support which one of the following conclusions?
A.The principle of equality before the law is rigorously applied in only a few types of criminal trials.
B.The number of convicted celebrities sentenced to community service should equal the number of convicted unknown defendants sentenced to community service.
C.The principle of equality before the law can properly be overridden by other principles in some cases.
D.The sentencing of celebrities to community service instead of prison constitutes a violation of the principle of equality before the law in many cases.
E.The principle of equality before the law does not allow for leniency in sentencing.

In my opinion:
A. it is not directly supported.
B. The number of convicted celebrities is lower than the number of convicted unknown defendants so it is not supported.
C. There is no information about other rules in the passage.
D. It is the answer because "famous personalities found guilty of many types of crimes in well-publicized trials are increasingly sentenced to the performance of community service, though unknown defendants convicted of similar crimes almost always serve prison sentences."
E. This principle is about equality not about leniency in sentencing.

IMO D.

It is the combination of 2 premises given in the argument.

abhigang -

I would recommend that process of elimination be your main strategy for inference/ conclusion also called "Must be true" questions. Other types of questions, like strengthen and weaken, can often be best approached by spending some time with the stimulus and getting a general idea of what you are looking for in a correct answer. Inference questions, on the other hand, have many possible answer choices that cannot really be predicted in any meaningful way on most questions.

Therefore a good approach to try is:

1) read the question stem and find that you have an inference question.

2) read the stimulus carefully, taking particular note of the scope (remember that most incorrect answers are "out of scope.")

3) move directly to the answer choices and eliminate those that "could be false." Remember that "could be true" means nothing because nearly anything could be true (I could be an alien computer designed to beat the gmat).

Four categories to use to quickly eliminate "could be false" answers:

A) Out of scope. Ask yourself "what does the stimulus say about..." very often the stimulus does not directly address and you can eliminate.

B) Predictions. Please remember that things in the future have not yet happened and so nearly always "could be false."

C) Must be False. These choices are not out of scope they are right in the scope, but they "must be false."

D) Things that tell people what to do. Remember that "should" statements in the answer choice have to be supported by should statements in the stimulus - this is very rare. GMAT does not like to tell people what to do!


Sometimes you will notice that a particular statement seems to be very well supported. Still a good idea to eliminate the other four.

Hope that helps!

I have been trying to solve the all questions on the forum and found that it is a very good way of learning because after each question you guys share your views and the reasoning behind the right and wrong answer choices. It's really good and generally questions are not so easy or may be i not so good in CR so i found them tough, I am not able to answer most of the questions correctly but i am sure the reasoning you guys share after each each question will definitely help me develop some base in CR...

MY answer is D,

What the official Answer?
[/spoiler]

David@VeritasPrep wrote:abhigang -

I would recommend that process of elimination be your main strategy for inference/ conclusion also called "Must be true" questions. Other types of questions, like strengthen and weaken, can often be best approached by spending some time with the stimulus and getting a general idea of what you are looking for in a correct answer. Inference questions, on the other hand, have many possible answer choices that cannot really be predicted in any meaningful way on most questions.

Therefore a good approach to try is:

1) read the question stem and find that you have an inference question.

2) read the stimulus carefully, taking particular note of the scope (remember that most incorrect answers are "out of scope.")

3) move directly to the answer choices and eliminate those that "could be false." Remember that "could be true" means nothing because nearly anything could be true (I could be an alien computer designed to beat the gmat).

Four categories to use to quickly eliminate "could be false" answers:

A) Out of scope. Ask yourself "what does the stimulus say about..." very often the stimulus does not directly address and you can eliminate.

B) Predictions. Please remember that things in the future have not yet happened and so nearly always "could be false."

C) Must be False. These choices are not out of scope they are right in the scope, but they "must be false."

D) Things that tell people what to do. Remember that "should" statements in the answer choice have to be supported by should statements in the stimulus - this is very rare. GMAT does not like to tell people what to do!


Sometimes you will notice that a particular statement seems to be very well supported. Still a good idea to eliminate the other four.

Hope that helps!

Yes David..that hepls !!!
Thanks a lot !!!

'E' looks the best of the lot. I don't think 'D' is the answer as it has 'many cases'.

E looks the best of the lot

Well, yeah D has to go out. The sentence is violation of the principle in all cases and not in many cases. This leaves E as the only choice.

Correct Guys,
I got it wrong it should be infect and the wording of the last option is almost same as the last sentence of the stimulus. I know it does not matter much but still one reason to add why D is wrong.