Critical Reasoning

CRITICAL REASONING QUESTION:

Mayor: Downtown Rosco Lake is generally a clean area, but the Monday after the Fourth of July weekend, there was twice as much trash in the streets and parks as usual. Since downtown Rosco Lake is a major tourist destination on weekends, it must be the tourists who are littering.

The mayor's argument is most called into question by which of the following, if true?

(A) Usually community volunteers go through downtown on Monday mornings, picking up litter.
(B) There is a certain correlation between tourist traffic and incidents of vandalism in many towns.
(C) During other weekends in July, there were no unusual amounts of litter.
(D) The North Shore lakefront area in Rosco Lake is rarely visited by tourists, and has almost no litter, compared to the South Shore, which is a tourist area, and has lots of rubbish lying around.
(E) The nearby town of Graylord was able to control its litter problem by instituting large fines that could be levied against litterers.


A or C??

'C' is the best answer.

Mayor says tourists are the cause of twice amount of litter. The weakening statement would be one that contradicts the mayor's reasoning. So,Quantity of litter i.e. twice amount of litter is not due to tourists. but twice amount is because there was no litter in other weekends.


(A)'Usually community volunteers go through downtown on Monday mornings, picking up litter.' doesn't contradict that tourist are cause of litter. because, still Mayor can say, Only tourists have generated heaps of litter.