Bold faced question from OG Verbal Review 1

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This is the question from OG Verbal Review 1 (from 2005) that I mentioned as being a very long stimulus with long and complicated answer choices. This is a difficult question it is number 82 out of 82 in that book. This question is not in the newest edition of the verbal review but a portion of this stimulus was transformed into an inference question (#56) in OG 12 edition. Good Luck!


"Consumer advocate: it is generally true, at least in this state, that lawyers who advertise a specific service charge less for that service than lawyers who do not advertise. It is also true that each time restrictions on the advertising of legal services have been eliminated, the number of lawyers advertising their services has increased and legal costs to consumers have declined in consequence. However, eliminating the state requirement that legal advertisements must specify fees for specific services would almost certainly increase rather than further reduce consumer's legal costs. Lawyers would no longer have an incentive to lower their fees when they begin advertising and if no longer required to specify fee arrangements, many lawyers who now advertise would increase their fees.

In the consumer advocate's argument, the two portions in boldface play which of the following roles?

(A) The first is a generalization that the consumer advocate accepts as true; the second is presented as a consequence that follows from the truth of that generalization.

(B) The first is a pattern of cause and effect that the consumer advocate argues will be repeated in the case at issue; the second acknowledges a circumstance in which that pattern would not hold.

(C) The first is pattern of cause and effect that the consumer advocate predicts will not hold in the case at issue; the second offers a consideration in support of that prediction.

(D) The first is evidence that the consumer advocate offers in support of a certain prediction; the second is that prediction.

(E) The first acknowledges a consideration that weighs against the main position that the consumer advocate defends; the second is that position.
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by diebeatsthegmat » Fri Sep 03, 2010 6:39 pm
David@VeritasPrep wrote:This is the question from OG Verbal Review 1 (from 2005) that I mentioned as being a very long stimulus with long and complicated answer choices. This is a difficult question it is number 82 out of 82 in that book. This question is not in the newest edition of the verbal review but a portion of this stimulus was transformed into an inference question (#56) in OG 12 edition. Good Luck!


"Consumer advocate: it is generally true, at least in this state, that lawyers who advertise a specific service charge less for that service than lawyers who do not advertise. It is also true that each time restrictions on the advertising of legal services have been eliminated, the number of lawyers advertising their services has increased and legal costs to consumers have declined in consequence. However, eliminating the state requirement that legal advertisements must specify fees for specific services would almost certainly increase rather than further reduce consumer's legal costs. Lawyers would no longer have an incentive to lower their fees when they begin advertising and if no longer required to specify fee arrangements, many lawyers who now advertise would increase their fees.

In the consumer advocate's argument, the two portions in boldface play which of the following roles?

(A) The first is a generalization that the consumer advocate accepts as true; the second is presented as a consequence that follows from the truth of that generalization.

(B) The first is a pattern of cause and effect that the consumer advocate argues will be repeated in the case at issue; the second acknowledges a circumstance in which that pattern would not hold.

(C) The first is pattern of cause and effect that the consumer advocate predicts will not hold in the case at issue; the second offers a consideration in support of that prediction.

(D) The first is evidence that the consumer advocate offers in support of a certain prediction; the second is that prediction.

(E) The first acknowledges a consideration that weighs against the main position that the consumer advocate defends; the second is that position.
i would choose C for the correct answer.

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by rohit_gmat » Sat Sep 04, 2010 3:05 am
B...

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by mohit11 » Sat Sep 04, 2010 3:46 am
David@VeritasPrep wrote:This is the question from OG Verbal Review 1 (from 2005) that I mentioned as being a very long stimulus with long and complicated answer choices. This is a difficult question it is number 82 out of 82 in that book. This question is not in the newest edition of the verbal review but a portion of this stimulus was transformed into an inference question (#56) in OG 12 edition. Good Luck!


"Consumer advocate: it is generally true, at least in this state, that lawyers who advertise a specific service charge less for that service than lawyers who do not advertise. It is also true that each time restrictions on the advertising of legal services have been eliminated, the number of lawyers advertising their services has increased and legal costs to consumers have declined in consequence. However, eliminating the state requirement that legal advertisements must specify fees for specific services would almost certainly increase rather than further reduce consumer's legal costs. Lawyers would no longer have an incentive to lower their fees when they begin advertising and if no longer required to specify fee arrangements, many lawyers who now advertise would increase their fees.

In the consumer advocate's argument, the two portions in boldface play which of the following roles?

(A) The first is a generalization that the consumer advocate accepts as true; the second is presented as a consequence that follows from the truth of that generalization.

(B) The first is a pattern of cause and effect that the consumer advocate argues will be repeated in the case at issue; the second acknowledges a circumstance in which that pattern would not hold.

(C) The first is pattern of cause and effect that the consumer advocate predicts will not hold in the case at issue; the second offers a consideration in support of that prediction.

(D) The first is evidence that the consumer advocate offers in support of a certain prediction; the second is that prediction.

(E) The first acknowledges a consideration that weighs against the main position that the consumer advocate defends; the second is that position.
A - Clearly wrong, the consumer advocate states that in the case at hand this pattern will not repeat.
B - Clearly wrong, the pattern will not be repeated
C - Correct
D - Second is not that prediction, it is in fact a consideration in support of the main conclusion of the argument
E - Second is not the main conclusion, it is a consideration is support of the main conclusion
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by David@VeritasPrep » Sat Sep 04, 2010 8:34 am
OA is C.

Nice explanation above by "Mohit11."

In this case, perhaps the best clue is the hard transition word, "however." This means that whatever has come before is about to be contradicted. In this case, the usual pattern of lower legal fees every time a restriction on advertising is lifted is being contradicted. The main conclusion is "eliminating the state requirement that legal advertisements must specify fees for specific services would almost certainly increase rather than further reduce consumer's legal costs." This directly contradicts the first statement in bold. The second statement in bold supports the main conclusion and so does not support the first bold portion.

Answer choices A and D presume a continuity between the two bold statements and can be eliminated. Choice E assumes that the second portion in bold is the main conclusion. Choice B correctly identifies the first portion as a cause and effect relationship but states that the pattern will hold true, when, in fact, the main conclusion argues that it will be not hold true.

Choice C is the correct answer because it identifies the cause and effect pattern and correctly states that the main conclusion is that the pattern will not hold true in this case. The second portion is in support of the prediction made in the main conclusion.

Tough Question!
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by selango » Sat Sep 04, 2010 8:40 am
This question is in GMATPREP CR review questions.
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by jennkimbal » Sat Jan 29, 2011 2:03 pm
What I don't understand is how you can definitively say whether the consumer advocate predicts the cause and effect relationship will or will not hold based only on the boldface parts alone. Right after the first boldface part comes "however", which implies that the pattern will not hold, but this is not part of the boldface. Basically I'm stuck between B and C. Can anyone explain this?

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by David@VeritasPrep » Sat Jan 29, 2011 3:22 pm
Ah! So there is where you have veered off a little in your strategy.

You do not only look at the bold-faced part of the argument to understand the argument.

For example, in this problem, the correct answer says that the first portion in bold "is pattern of cause and effect that the consumer advocate predicts will not hold in the case at issue..."

Now ask yourself, could this first portion be a pattern of cause and effect? The answer is yes it could. At this point you are then free to look anywhere in the argument for the consumer advocate to predict that the pattern will not apply here.

Here is the takeaway for bold-faced reasoning in general: the portion of the answer choice that is specific to bold-faced must be true of that portion. If it refers to the bold-faced as the conclusion or as a premise or a prediction or in this case "a pattern of cause and effect" then that must be true of the bold-faced statement itself. However, other things in the answer choice that go beyond identification can be found in other places. As in this case you mention that after the word "however" we learn that the cause and effect will not hold.

Here is a hypothetical example: If the answer choice said that the first portion was "a premise that contradicts the conclusion of the argument" you would first confirm that the part in bold-face was indeed a premise and then you would be free to check other parts of the argument to see if this contradicted the conclusion.

In this question, for B to be true, you would need to look throughout the entire argument to find where the pattern is predicted to hold (of course you find that it is predicted not to hold).

So it is C.

Does that help?
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by nikhilsrl » Sun Jan 30, 2011 6:22 am
Hello David,

Choice B says "The first is a pattern of cause and effect that the consumer advocate argues will be repeated in the case at issue; the second acknowledges a circumstance in which that pattern would not hold."

Isn't the 1st bold part suggesting a pattern that does not hold true for the 2nd bold part. If so B appears to be valid.

Please clarify.

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by David@VeritasPrep » Sun Jan 30, 2011 7:02 am
Choice B says "The first is a pattern of cause and effect that the consumer advocate argues will be repeated in the case at issue; the second acknowledges a circumstance in which that pattern would not hold."

Isn't the 1st bold part suggesting a pattern that does not hold true for the 2nd bold part. If so B appears to be valid.

Please clarify.
Please keep in mind that this is the most difficult question that I have seen released in all of the Official Guide books.

Choice B is not correct because the part that you do not have in bold from choice B says that the pattern of cause and effect "will be repeated in the the case at issue." This is not right. The sentence that you cited beginning with "however" indicates that in the case of eliminating the requirement for a specification of fees (which is this case) the pattern will not hold.

Also, the second portion is said in choice B to "the second acknowledges a circumstance in which that pattern would not hold." This is quite subtle, but the second portion does not do this - the second portion does not really set up a circumstance at all - but more describes a circumstance that is already mentioned above...Do you see how that last sentence takes for granted that we already know what the circumstance is? It just launches into "lawyers would not longer..." Well when would this be true? When the requirement for legal ads to specify fees is eliminated.

Hope this makes sense? It if helps, I was confused by this one the first time I looked at it! (Maybe the second time too).

Remember that with Bold Faced Reasoning it is a process of elimination so you are looking for anything wrong with the answer choice so that you can eliminate it. Like in Sentence Correction.
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by mundasingh123 » Thu May 19, 2011 12:07 pm
Also, the second portion is said in choice B to "the second acknowledges a circumstance in which that pattern would not hold." This is quite subtle, but the second portion does not do this - the second portion does not really set up a circumstance at all - but more describes a circumstance that is already mentioned above...Do you see how that last sentence takes for granted that we already know what the circumstance is? It just launches into "lawyers would not longer..." Well when would this be true? When the requirement for legal ads to specify fees is eliminated.
Hi David i dont understand this .
ac·knowl·edge/akˈnälij/Verb
1. Accept or admit the existence or truth of.
2. (of a body of opinion) Recognize the fact or importance or quality of.
whats wrong with "acknowledges "[/quote]
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by kareem.firoz » Thu May 19, 2011 9:43 pm
Took me 6 mins to conclude on C
David@VeritasPrep wrote:OA is C.

Nice explanation above by "Mohit11."

.....

Tough Question!

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by David@VeritasPrep » Fri May 20, 2011 5:13 am
Nice job kareem.firoz! 6 minutes seems like about right for this crazy question!


Mundasingh -

It is not the word "acknowledge" that is a problem.

I think what I have said about the second may be just a little bit reaching. Let's focus on the first bold portion and the fact that the pattern of cause and effect mentioned in the first portion is not predicted to continue, but will actually NOT continue in the case at hand.

I should have stuck to the clearest path here this is already a wild one and no need for me to complicate it.
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by Carcass » Fri May 20, 2011 2:36 pm
Really really hard . :) I pick B, unfortunately

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by mriiidula » Thu Jun 30, 2011 10:56 am
This is difficult! I was stuck between 'B' and 'C' too, but had no clue how to tell. I would've just guessed this one if something like this comes up.
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