Age and attire

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Age and attire

by maihuna » Thu Jan 08, 2009 9:52 am
A particular phenomenon has been observed in the relationship between age and attire. The more formally a person is dressed, the older the average observer will gauge him or her to be. Thus, the average observer viewing two men, one wearing a business suit and the other wearing casual clothing, will generally estimate the man in the business suit to be five years older than the man wearing casual clothing.

The conclusion of the argument above would be more properly drawn if which of the following were true?


The age of the man wearing the business suit is greater than that of the man wearing casual clothing.

The older a man is, the more likely it is that he will wear a business suit.

The age of the man wearing the business suit is equal to the age of the man wearing casual clothing.

The average observer’s estimates of age are generally more accurate regarding casually dressed people than formally dressed people.

The average observer’s estimates of age are generally more accurate regarding formally dressed people than casually dressed people.
Source: — Critical Reasoning |

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by vivek.kapoor83 » Thu Jan 08, 2009 9:54 am
IMo B

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by maihuna » Thu Jan 08, 2009 9:55 am
vivek.kapoor83 wrote:IMo B
And why so?

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by canada_sms » Thu Jan 08, 2009 10:22 am
IMO: B

Premise: An observer will estimate someone is older the more formally they are dressed.
Conclusion: This means that if you have two guys, one in a suit, one dressed casually, that an observer will estimate the man in the suit to be older by 5 year.

Answer B brings in new information. The older a man is the more likely they will wear a suit. This information strengthens the conclusion because it provides more support for the argument. If it is true that the older someone is the more likely they will dress formally, it makes sense that an observer will estimate someone who is dressed formally to be older.

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by maihuna » Thu Jan 08, 2009 10:35 am
But the issue here is about the new phenomenon that is related with dressing. right? If an older person is judged older then where comes fit this new phenomenon?

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Re: Age and attire

by logitech » Thu Jan 08, 2009 10:55 am
TIE needs to affect an APPLE TO APPLE comparision so the right choice is C


The age of the man wearing the business suit is equal to the age of the man wearing casual clothing.
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by maihuna » Thu Jan 08, 2009 11:43 am
Rigght, C does that, even if the two guys are of same age, the one in formals is 5 year older to the observer, because of the phenomenon...

OA -C

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IMO D

by pjasani12 » Tue Jan 13, 2009 7:09 am
Cause the conclusion is if a person is in formals he is considered to be of more age and another person which is in casual attire is considered to be younger as compared to other person, well this can be more true if we
say that in general those who wear casual clothes are always young
would bring us right to our conclusion.

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by maihuna » Tue Jan 13, 2009 10:12 am
yeah thats correct

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by nervesofsteel » Wed Jan 14, 2009 1:14 am
Yes should be C

if we say that the age of the men are equal and then the observer says that one looks older than the other ... means that the attire is impacting the observation of the third person... which make the conclusion more suitable....
if a difference in age is there .... this may impact conclusion of the observer...

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by mason77 » Sat May 14, 2016 12:31 am
I am leaning more towards C