Critical Reasoning

Two groups of students, one from Country X and one from Country Y, were shown videotapes of criminal trials. When surveyed about sentences for those defendants who were found guilty, the opinions of the students from Country X were not correlated with whether the crimes were premeditated. The responses of the students from Country Y, however, varied depending on the degree of premeditation. People from Country X, then, do not regard intentions as a relevant part of sentencing to the same extent as people from Country Y.

Which of the following, if true, would be most damaging to the above conclusion?

A. The criminal trials were conducted in the language of Country Y, making it difficult for the students from Country X to distinguish the intentions of the accused.

B. The nature of the crime was clearly stated in each trial.

C. Almost half of the crimes were not premeditated.

D. Another study has shown that the general population of Country Y regards premeditation as an important element of criminal sentencing.

E. The students from Country X assigned punishments that varied depending on the severity of the crime committed.


OA is A

Please help

Kushal

IMO, A is the correct answer.

A. If the students of country X did not understand the language clearly, they could only base their judgments from the video evidence which would not allow them to understand the intent of the criminal prior to the criminal committing the crime.

B. Strengthens the argument - If the nature of the crimes were clearly stated, then the students of country X would be aware of the intent of the criminals before passing judgement.

C. Irrelevant. We are concerned with what factors the students of country X consider when passing judgement; the nature of the crimes does not matter.

D. We already know that. Irrelevant.

E. Strengthens the argument. If the students of country X assign punishments based on the severity of the crime committed, then it proves that they do not consider intent.

kushal.adhia wrote:Two groups of students, one from Country X and one from Country Y, were shown videotapes of criminal trials. When surveyed about sentences for those defendants who were found guilty, the opinions of the students from Country X were not correlated with whether the crimes were premeditated. The responses of the students from Country Y, however, varied depending on the degree of premeditation. People from Country X, then, do not regard intentions as a relevant part of sentencing to the same extent as people from Country Y.

Which of the following, if true, would be most damaging to the above conclusion?

A. The criminal trials were conducted in the language of Country Y, making it difficult for the students from Country X to distinguish the intentions of the accused.

B. The nature of the crime was clearly stated in each trial.

C. Almost half of the crimes were not premeditated.

D. Another study has shown that the general population of Country Y regards premeditation as an important element of criminal sentencing.

E. The students from Country X assigned punishments that varied depending on the severity of the crime committed.


OA is A

Please help

Kushal

You need to break this question down into two parts: first figure out what the conclusion is, and then what the question is asking. Once you have that down, then you need to figure out what you can do to support the question.

Conclusion: Country X does not find intentions to be a relevant factor in sentencing while Country Y does. It means the two are different in this category.

Question: What choice would clearly go against this conclusion?

What are we looking for? We want something to prove that this is not the case, that this judgment is flawed, and A is the only one that fits the bill. A states that it is not because Country X does not believe intentions are relevant, it is saying that there was something else which made it so this group could not pick up on certain areas where it was simple for Country Y.

What is the source of this Q? Personally.. I hope this isnt an OG...

Thank you ravish and rooster

@odannyboi: don't worry it's not an OG question.. source is kaplan