Critical Reasoning

Market Analyst: Recent research confirms that the main cause of bad breath is bacteria build-up on the tongue. The research also concludes that tongue scrapers, when used properly, can eliminate up to 40% of the bacteria from the tongue. As the effectiveness of tongue scrapers becomes more widely known, the market for less effective breath freshening products, such as mints, gums, and sprays, will decline significantly.

Which of the following provides the best evidence that the analyst's argument is flawed?

Some breath freshening products are advertised to eliminate up to 30% of the bacteria from the tongue.

Tongue scrapers have already been on the market for a number of years.

Many dentists recommend regular flossing, and not the use of the tongue scraper, to combat bad breath.

A recent survey shows that 94% of those who regularly purchase breath freshening products are aware of the effectiveness of the tongue scraper.

Some people buy breath freshening products for reasons other than to fight bad breath.


OA D This does not make any sense what so ever. I assume that all of you beatthegmat.com users can see why this answer must be flawed, if not, please give a precise explanation.

Also, form studying the CR Bible, the Flaw in reasoning answers shouldn't use outside information. Please pitch in !

I agree with the answer.
The original analysis is that the target market for breath freshener products will stop purchasing those products once they discover the wonder that is the tongue scraper.

In (D) that target group our analyst is concerned about already knows about the tongue scraper (at least the94% do), but in spite of this, continue to purchase the breath freshener products. If this is the case, than the analyst's fear of decreased sales as awareness increase in unfounded, because they continue to purchase the products anyway.

That's my humble spin on things. [/quote]

Hi heshamelaziry,

This is actually not a "flaw in the reasoning question". In a flaw question, all of the answer choices are putative descriptions of the author's reasoning process. Instead of being descriptions of the author's reasoning process, all of the answer choices here are new facts.

The question does not ask you to describe a fault or flaw in the author's reasoning process; instead, it asks you to find a choice that would provide the best evidence that the argument is flawed. As such, it is a cleverly worded weaken question.

As a weaken question, we need to find a fact (again all the answer choices are facts) that would make the conclusion less likely to be true (than it was prior to our knowledge of that fact).

The conclusion is that after learning of the effectiveness of tongue scrapers, the market for alternative bacteria-killing prodcuts (breath-fresheneners) will dwindle.

Choice D tells us that those who buy the breath-fresheners are already aware of the effectiveness of the tongue scraper (and yet they still buy the breath-fresheners). You should now find the conclusion less likely to be true.

Hope this helps.










[/quote]

Hello Testluv,

That was a great insight on how a question very cleverly misguide....

Is the word "Some" the only reason we can eliminate answer choice A?....As it doesnt attack the numbers precisley as "D" does?...

Hi vankab,

nope!

Actually, we can eliminate A because it provides us with no new information: we already know from the passage that tongue scrapers are 40 percent effective in eliminating bacteria and that breath-fresheners are "less effective".

Sorry, I wasing to referring to asnwer choise E....

[email protected] wrote:Sorry, I wasing to referring to asnwer choise E....

I think we eventually eliminate E because it doesn't contradict the conclusion as much as D does. Picture the following conversations

-"Once everyone knows about tongue scrapers and how well they work, everyone will want them and much less people will want mints and such"
-"Dude, 94% of people already know about tongue scrapers and how well they work."


Next convo:

-"Once everyone knows about tongue scrapers and how well they work, everyone will want them and much less people will want mints and such"
-"Yeah, but people buy mints and such for other reasons"

What's the better comeback? I think the first one.

E fails to weaken the argument.

If people buy breath-fresheners for reasons other than fighting off the bacteria that causes bad breath (yeah, right--they would buy candy if it was for taste!), then they shouldn't be any less likely to buy breath fresheners when they become aware that there are other things that are better at fighting off bad breath. They just wouldn't care! (And I guess they would go on chewing breathmints for the taste!)

E seems to be the best choice here