Weaken argument question

very strange.

I see both B and C are correct. Pls, help why B is wrong if C is OA

(B) Most students who stopped smoking on school premises last year continued to smoke when away from school.

B is the correct choice, The Program was not a success all by itself.

C cannot be correct beacuse the Program failed due to another policy and under the assumption that students are only smoking when they took a break from the school.

What's the source of this question please?

I am not sure if 'C' is the most appropriate answer and also the argument is not so clear. Does it say the purpose of the drive is to prevent smoking or is it to prevent smoking on the school premises?

So, need an expect to provide an explanation of the question and the answer.

Cheers

paddle_sweep wrote:What's the source of this question please?

I am not sure if 'C' is the most appropriate answer and also the argument is not so clear. Does it say the purpose of the drive is to prevent smoking or is it to prevent smoking on the school premises?

So, need an expect to provide an explanation of the question and the answer.

Cheers

The argument is:

A system-wide county school anti-smoking education program was instituted last year. The program was clearly a success. Last year, the incidence of students smoking on school premises decreased by over 70 percent.

The author thinks that the anti-smoking program was a success because smoking on school grounds decreased. (Because the purpose of the program is to decrease smoking, we have to interpret "success" as: the kids are smoking less--doesn't matter where--just that they are smoking less).

We can say that choice B weakens because the kids who stopped smoking at school continued smoking elsewhere. We can also say that choice B doesn't weaken because the argument was about instances of smoking and not fraction of kids who smoke--in other words, the program may be regarded as successful if kids who used to smoke 20 cigarettes a day now only smoke 2.

We can say choice C weakens because it point to an alternative explanation: the kids' smoking at school decreased not because the kids' smoking decreased but rather because when they want to smoke they just leave the school. Because choice C isn't as ambiguous as choice B, we should select choice C.

We can say that this isn't a great question! (Choice B leads to multiple reasonable interpretations).

IMO B.

Premise: Smoking in school premises decreased by 70 %.
conclusion: Antismoking program was successful.

Even if u consider C and consider the argument to be about school anti smoking not only anti smoking even then C only strengthens by ultimately saying that students went out of school grounds and smoked. Which is what the conclusion is about deccrease in smoking in school premises.

C could have been the answer if in the argument it would have been mentioned that antismoking program is about no smoking during school hours. Only then we could have said that C weakens the conclusion. But the argument says about school antismoking which can be interpreted in 2 ways-
1. No smoking inside the school premises. In this case C strengthens not weakens the conclusion. B is not related.
2. Antismoking for school children : In this case B weakens the conclusion. C also weakens but B is more appropriate then C.

Which is what the conclusion is about deccrease in smoking in school premises.

If the conclusion was about decreasing smoking in school, then you are correct in saying that choice C strengthens!

However, you have misconstrued the conclusion. As I explained in my post above, the conclusion is that the anti-smoking campaign was a success. What can we surmise is the purpose of an "anti-smoking campaign"?....To decrease smoking, period. So the program is successful if smoking decreases, period. The evidence (and not the conclusion) is about decreased smoking in school.

Choice C is correct, but the question is not well-designed for reasons I outlined in my post above. So, practicing on this question isn't worth the time; in fact, practicing on a question such as this may indeed be detrimental.