Critical Reasoning

abhasjha wrote:Financial success does not guarantee happiness. This claim is not mere proverbial wisdom but a fact verified by statistics. In a recently concluded survey, only one third of the respondents who claimed to have achieved financial success reported that they were happy.

Which one of the following, if true, most strongly supports the conclusion drawn from the survey results?

(A) The respondents who reported financial success were, for the most part,
financially successful.
(B) Financial success was once thought to be necessary for happiness but is no
longer considered a prerequisite for happiness.
(C) Many of the respondents who claimed not to have achieved financial success
reported that they were happy five years ago.
(D) Many of the respondents who failed to report financial success were in fact
financially successful.
(E) Most of the respondents who reported they were unhappy were in fact happy.

only one third of the respondents who claimed to have achieved financial success

shahdevine wrote:
B only rephrases the conclusion which I believe is different from strengthening the conclusion. To strengthen would require reducing the gap between the premise and the conclusion, i.e. confirming an assumption as true.

Here the assumption is that people who say they are financially successful really are successfull. Looking at it from another angle, people who are unhappy may be so because they are unsuccessful and have not been honest about their financial success in the survey.

Hope this helps.

life is a test wrote:

shahdevine wrote:
B only rephrases the conclusion which I believe is different from strengthening the conclusion. To strengthen would require reducing the gap between the premise and the conclusion, i.e. confirming an assumption as true.

Here the assumption is that people who say they are financially successful really are successfull. Looking at it from another angle, people who are unhappy may be so because they are unsuccessful and have not been honest about their financial success in the survey.

Hope this helps.

if answer is A. then i stand corrected. this is a tough one. but I will concede a works as well. by the way, be careful. There is nothing wrong with observations if they are used as a fact. Premises do not only have to be statistics based. For instance, I might build an argument about how people prefer sunny days to rainy days based on the observation that i see more people out on sunny days. This is an observation that I can use to back my claim that people prefer sunny days to rainy days. Now this premise might be weak. And doing a survey asking preference questions might strengthen my argument more effectively. But its still a premise that can advance my conclusion/position. GMAT test makers love exploiting test takers that are only looking for statistical premises to strengthen arguments.