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newspaper .....

by AIM GMAT » Sat Apr 02, 2011 10:56 am
A greater number of newspapers are sold in Town S than in Town T. Therefore, the citizens of Town S are better informed about major world events than are the citizens of Town T.

Each of the following, if true, weakens the conclusion above EXCEPT:
(A) Town S has a larger population than Town T.
(B) Most citizens of Town T work in Town S and buy their newspapers there.
(C) The average citizen of Town S spends less time reading newspapers than does the average citizen of Town T.
(D) A weekly newspaper restricted to the coverage of local events is published in Town S.
(E) The average newsstand price of newspapers sold in Town S in lower than the average price of
newspapers sold in Town T.
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by atulmangal » Sat Apr 02, 2011 11:07 am
IMO E

A,B C and D weakens the conclusion and E is irrelevant,

Therefore its E which doesn't weaken the conclusion
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by vindhyareddy » Sat Apr 02, 2011 11:34 pm
IMO: C or E. I am confused here bw the two.
For C, Can we actually correlate avg reading time to being better informed? (doesn't weaken conclusion)
For E ,A correlation bw cost to being better informed? (strengthens the premise here but not sure if it weakens the conclusion)

Need an explaination please.. Thanks in advance
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by atulmangal » Sun Apr 03, 2011 12:39 am
vindhyareddy wrote:IMO: C or E. I am confused here bw the two.
For C, Can we actually correlate avg reading time to being better informed? (doesn't weaken conclusion)
For E ,A correlation bw cost to being better informed? (strengthens the premise here but not sure if it weakens the conclusion)

Need an explaination please.. Thanks in advance
C is Wrong please see the below explanation..

Op C basically talk about
the Av. time a reader spend in reading newspaper(This doesn't include total population it only includes the people who read newspaper )

so let say total no of people who read newspaper(NOT TOTAL POPULATION) in town S is "S" and in town T be "T"

Moreover, lets say the total time spend by the newsreaders(NOT TOTAL POPULATION) in Town S be "X" and in town T be "Y"

so according to Op C

S/X < T/Y this means

=> S < T...i.e no of people who read news paper in Town S is less than Town T

Hence C is incorrect

I hope this mathematical analysis clear your doubt...Thanks
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by Geva@EconomistGMAT » Sun Apr 03, 2011 4:45 am
vindhyareddy wrote:IMO: C or E. I am confused here bw the two.
For C, Can we actually correlate avg reading time to being better informed? (doesn't weaken conclusion)
For E ,A correlation bw cost to being better informed? (strengthens the premise here but not sure if it weakens the conclusion)

Need an explaination please.. Thanks in advance
C actually weakens by going against the direction of the argument: S sells more newspapers BUT the people in S spend less time reading the greater number of newspapers they buy. This attacks the argument's assumption that more papers sold also means more papers read, which translates into more informed readers.

E doesn't weaken the conclusion. it might explain WHY S sells more newspapers - the papers are cheaper there - but it does not weaken the conclusion that they are better informed.
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by force5 » Sun Apr 03, 2011 12:09 pm
hi Geva thanks for your reply. I some how don't agree to the answer. i think its not a good question as there is a lot of confusion.

A, B , C are out...
(E) The average newsstand price of newspapers sold in Town S in lower than the average price of newspapers sold in Town T.
this is actually weakening the conclusion.
conclusion is since s sells more newspapers, citizens of S are better informed about world events.
Now E tells us that S sells more newspapers because newspapers are cheaper in Town S (and not because people really want to buy newspapers to read more and hence stay more informed)

(D) A weekly newspaper restricted to the coverage of local events is published in Town S.
Now look at D-- it says "A Weekly newspaper....this doesn't mean that all newspapers or largest circulating newspaper does not have the information about world events....This just talks about one newspaper.. this information is insufficient to prove that its causing any benefit or harm to the conclusion...

I think answer should be D --- or its a wrong question.
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by atulmangal » Sun Apr 03, 2011 12:22 pm
@ force

conclusion is :- citizens of Town S are better informed about major world events

what if the newspaper doesn't contain the world's major even and it contains only the local event??? just think isn't this weakening the conclusion??? the conclusion is about world events not just any event
OP D:-A weekly newspaper restricted to the coverage of local events is published in Town S.
knowledge is restricted to local events, Town S people are not getting knowledge about the World
Now relate Op D with my line of reasoning...hope this helps
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by singh181 » Sun Apr 03, 2011 10:06 pm
Usually to weaken an argument you can do following:
- provide Alternate explanation.
- reverse the causation
- show that factors stated are co-related, instead caused by another 3rd factor

The argument states that "Since more newspaper are sold in S than in T, so S are more informed about world events than T are."

more newspapers sold in S --> S more informed about world events

(A) Town S has a larger population than Town T. Alternate explanation. pop of S is more than T
(B) Most citizens of Town T work in Town S and buy their newspapers there. Alternate explanation. more T people work in S
(C) The average citizen of Town S spends less time reading newspapers than does the average citizen of Town T. S people spend less time reading the newspaper than T do. But the argument does not mentioned in which section of the news paper they spend their time. For example they could just the "World section" can throw the newspaper after that, and T people spend more time in reading Clebs news. So, I have to make a lot assumptions on this one
(D) A weekly newspaper restricted to the coverage of local events is published in Town S. assuming Publishing-->selling of that newspaper. S people are buying local news paper. Alternate explanation
(E) The average newsstand price of newspapers sold in Town S in lower than the average price of
newspapers sold in Town Tavg Price of news paper is lower in S than in T. But does not give relationship between the avg price and selling of Newspaper. IRRELEVANT

IMO C
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by Geva@EconomistGMAT » Mon Apr 04, 2011 12:09 am
force5 wrote:hi Geva thanks for your reply. I some how don't agree to the answer. i think its not a good question as there is a lot of confusion.

A, B , C are out...
(E) The average newsstand price of newspapers sold in Town S in lower than the average price of newspapers sold in Town T.
this is actually weakening the conclusion.
conclusion is since s sells more newspapers, citizens of S are better informed about world events.
Now E tells us that S sells more newspapers because newspapers are cheaper in Town S (and not because people really want to buy newspapers to read more and hence stay more informed)

If the arguement's conclusion were that "the reason that newspapers sell more in S is because people there like/want to be more informed about world events", I'd agree with you -price would've provided an alternative exmplanation, an alternative cause as to why newspaper sell more. But that's not the case, and the argument above is a sort of the reverse: here, the fact that people are more informed is the end result, not the cause behind the increased sales. The price of the newspaper bear no relation to the link between buying more newspaper to being more informed, which is the way to weaken this argument.

(D) A weekly newspaper restricted to the coverage of local events is published in Town S.
Now look at D-- it says "A Weekly newspaper....this doesn't mean that all newspapers or largest circulating newspaper does not have the information about world events....This just talks about one newspaper.. this information is insufficient to prove that its causing any benefit or harm to the conclusion...

I think answer should be D --- or its a wrong question.
as for this one, if part of the increased sales of newspapers in S is a result of a local newspaper concerning local events (and not world events), then the statistic about increased sales is weakened as evidence to the claim that the people of S are more informed about world events - sure, they buy more newspapers, but that contributes to being informed about local news, not international news.
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by Target2009 » Mon Apr 04, 2011 5:23 am
IMO E
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by vindhyareddy » Sun Apr 10, 2011 7:53 am
Thanks all for the explaination !
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