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undermines the conclusion

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by aratister » Mon Dec 19, 2011 10:57 am
David@VeritasPrep wrote:No E does not strengthen. Remember the conclusion here is sort of a cause and effect. We know that few women win elections for office compared to me. We are also given the reason for this..."so few women want to run." That is the key part of the conclusion. When you get an argument where one thing is supposed to cause the other, the cause is always the conclusion. So to weaken this we are going to say that the cause is NOT that the women do not want to run, but something else.

So E does this job and weakens. The women fail to run for and win elections not because they do not want to run, but because they cannot get the funding.

For E to strengthen it would need to reinforce that women do not WANT to run. So something like "Women see that politics is a dirty game and that very little gets accomplished and so they choose not run for office." That would strengthen the conclusion. The current answer choice E does not.

Hope it helps!
I like and agree to your explaination. Could you please explain why B is not the answer?
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by Sharma_Gaurav » Sun Jan 08, 2012 1:13 pm
option E is correct.

Took 2 mins and 24 secs
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by happymanocha » Sat Jan 14, 2012 3:07 pm
Therefore, the reason there are so few women who win elections for these offices is not that women have difficulty winning elections but that so few women want to run.

To weaken the argument, we need to have something in answer choices which shows more women want to run.

Only A and E fits this criteria. While A is for reelection.

IMO : E.
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by bostonblue » Mon Jan 30, 2012 7:40 am
In my humble opinion, it seems there is a bit of best fit reasoning that needs to be applied to many of these questions. Sure, as many have pointed out, there might be another choice that undermines the conclusion, but the real question is which argument best undermines the argument. In that case, the answer must be E.
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by MQ0451 » Sat Feb 11, 2012 1:27 pm
Answer A was the only contender next to E. It's tempting because it seems to explain that women aren't actually winning the elections - but the number of women running for reelection is a small subset of the total number of elections. The stimulus already says that the rate that women win vs men is equal, so if women are not winning the reelection campaigns, they could be winning against incumbents more frequently. There is not enough information in this choice.

E provides another possible reason that women are losing elections - if we assume it to be true, then we can't say with certainty that the reason so few women win is because there aren't that many running for office. Therefor, the conclusion is undermined, and we have the right answer.
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by nitts » Thu Feb 16, 2012 3:37 pm
E is the right choice.
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by ravivu » Sun Feb 26, 2012 8:11 am
my choice is "E"

Bcs to undermine the above conclusion in the above argument

show that the effect occurs the cause does not occurs

cause: few woman want to run national offices

effect: few woman who wins election

answer E states that more woman are intrested to run national offices but bcs lack of funding for their campaign

this answer shows that more woman are intrested to run national offices but few win bcs of few woman cmg fwd for elections
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by HARPREET KAUR » Sun Mar 11, 2012 12:38 am
Can somebody tell me what is the right answer?
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by ka_t_rin » Sun Mar 18, 2012 2:13 am
E is correct. Look what we have:

Premise 1. W`s chances to win are nearly equal to those of men.
Pr 2. BUT there only 15% of candidates who are W.
Conclusion: the second premise is the reason for so few women in the offices.

The author makes an unsupported assumpion that there are no other reasons for this case.
Our strategy is to attack this assumpion, therefore the answer is E )))
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by tanviet » Tue Mar 20, 2012 12:06 am
experts, members, pls, help

for most of weakening problems, the weakener is new information which cast doubt on an assumption.

But for some of weakening problems, a weakener can be a new information which directly weakens the conclusion. Anyone know this type, pls give me an example. I remember there is a question of this type from gmatprep but I do not remember.
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by liquid » Tue Apr 03, 2012 7:44 am
I chose E

a. not talking about reelections, irrelevant
b. actually strengthens the argument regarding few women run for office
c. same as b strengthens the argument
d. not talking about local offices, irrelevant
e. correct, women don't win because they don't get funding NOT because there aren't enough women to compete against men.
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by sandstorm » Sat Apr 07, 2012 10:07 am
IMO E
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by asax » Wed Jun 20, 2012 1:54 am
E!
Looking forward to 2013 MBA admissions!
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by UmangMathur » Wed Jul 11, 2012 4:57 am
gmatnmein2010 wrote:Last year in the United States, women who ran for state and national offices were about as likely to win as men. However, only about fifteen percent of the candidates for these offices were women. Therefore, the reason there are so few women who win elections for these offices is not that women have difficulty winning elections but that so few women want to run.
Which of the following, if true, most seriously undermines the conclusion given?
(A) Last year the proportion of women incumbents who won reelection was smaller than the proportion of men incumbents who won reelection.
(B) Few women who run for state and national offices run against other women.
(C) Most women who have no strong desire to be politicians never run for state and national offices.
(D) The proportion of people holding local offices who are women is smaller than the proportion of people holding state and national offices who are women.
(E) Many more women than men who want to run for state and national offices do not because they cannot get adequate funding for their campaigns.

My ans was C but I am wrng again y????

LSAT
Choice E - Provides the best possible explanation by stating that women want to run, but it's the lack of funds which stop them.
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by ehsansystem » Sat Aug 04, 2012 11:59 pm
the attitude in E is same as the text, while B undermines it.
answer is B
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