For the last five years, the XYZ Courier Company has made regular deli

Calls into question means Weakens an argument. Doesn't call into question is the opposite- Strengthens.

Question type: WeakensX

John thinks it would take him 80 minutes for the entire trip. All but one of the options prove his thinking wrong and here's how:

a) The route between Town A and Town B has been plagued by increasing congestion over the last five years, as the area's population has doubled during that time.
>>>It gives a reason to suspect that the present state of road will cause him more time.
Just a hypothetical scenario:
5 years back-> No congestion-> Speed 130 mph
Now-> Congestion-> Speed 30 mph
Average-> 80 mph
Thus, average speed for last five years is not a good basis to judge the travel time today. Weakens.

b) Most of XYZ’s courier vehicles are heavy trucks, for which speed limits are lower than for passenger vehicles.
>>>John will be traveling in a passenger car and can potentially travel faster because of less restriction. The travel time can thus be significantly lower.

c) Many of the packages carried by XYZ between Town A and Town B are large, high-security packages, for which the processes of loading, unloading, and delivery can take up to half the length of the trip itself.
>>> average time was calculated "excluding the time taken for loading, unloading, and delivery, over that period has been 80 minutes." Thus, this doesn't weaken his guess.

d) John will make his personal trip at an hour when XYZ does not make delivery trips.
Night times; free road. Faster travel time compared to the travel time during the day when the delivery happens.

e) Before a freeway was built between Town A and Town B two years ago, the only routes between the two towns were state highways with multiple traffic lights and reduced-speed downtown zones.
2 years back-> bad speed-> maybe 50
Now->110 mph
John can make the trip more quickly.
Weaken

Ans: "C"

If you predict that you would score approximately 750 in GMAT.

Scoring an 800 or a 700 would both be considered bad prediction. This argument is similar.

80 mph means 80 mph.
both 130 mph AND 30 mph are bad result.

I dont understand the question and ans choices at all , some one please please help what is the conclusion and how
we need to strengthen it

John thinks he should allow approx 80 mins for round trip , now does he includes loading etc in this 80 mins or excluding it
.If he exluded loading etc in this round trip , he want to take personal trip in this 80 mins only or outside of it
please please help . I dont understand the question neither how C is correct .

Besides this if someone could please explain the strategy for such questions.

Regards
Megha

As the packing, loading, and delivery time is not taken into account for calculating the average time that John uses as a reference, option (C) should be the correct choice. Option (C) refers to the packing, loading, and delivery time which is irrelevant to the calculation, and so does not call John's conclusion into question.

All of the other choices create a chance that the time taken as reference by John is not correct due to various factors.

John's conclusion - it should take same amount of time for his personal trip as it does for the deliveries.
Question - Which one does NOT WEAKEN John's conclusion.

A) The average time taken over the past five years has been 80 minutes. The population and congestion also has increased over the past five years. Worst case scenario - population stayed the same over 4 out of 5 years, but doubled just last year. So, say it used to take 40 minutes before and now takes about 120 minutes to deliver. Then it may weaken John's estimates that he can complete the trip in 80 minutes.

B) Delivery trucks are heavy and slow. Then they take more time than John's car to reach the destination. John would make the trip in less than 80 minutes. This strengthens his conclusion.

C) We know that the time taken for loading and unloading is not taken into consideration while calculating average delivery time for the company. This neither strengthens, nor weakens John's conclusion.

D) We don't know for sure what the consequences of this is going to be. If John is making personal trip at a busier hour, he would need more time, if not, he may complete the trip in less than 80 minutes. This can be viewed as an outside the scope option.

E) This means it used to take more than 80 minutes the first three years of the last five years, now it takes less. So, John would be able to complete the trip in less than the average time of 80 minutes.

Only (C) does NOT WEAKEN the conclusion and hence the right answer.

Hope this helps.

For the last five years, the XYZ Courier Company has made regular delivery trips between Town A and Town B. The average time taken by the company’s drivers to drive the round trip between the two towns, excluding the time taken for loading, unloading, and delivery, over that period has been 80 minutes. John, a driver for XYZ, needs to make a personal trip between the two towns; he figures that he should allow approximately 80 minutes for the round trip.

I would have to go with C.

a)The route between Town A and Town B has been plagued by increasing congestion over the last five years, as the area's population has doubled during that time..

Its basicially saying it will take more time

b) Most of XYZ’s courier vehicles are heavy trucks, for which speed limits are lower than for passenger vehicles.
If the speedlimit is just below so basically he can travel faster and possibly complete before 80 mins

c) Many of the packages carried by XYZ between Town A and Town B are large, high-security packages, for which the processes of loading, unloading, and delivery can take up to half the length of the trip itself.. Correct Choice

d) John will make his personal trip at an hour when XYZ does not make delivery trips. weakens cos hes completing the trip faster.

e) Before a freeway was built between Town A and Town B two years ago, the only routes between the two towns were state highways with multiple traffic lights and reduced-speed downtown zones. This is saying for 3 years it was taking more time and now its lower cos the average time is 80 mins according to the passage

E is not out of scope as it implies that for three years out of five, time required for a round trip was much more than it has been for the last two years.Thus the average turns out to be 80 mins.John should lower his estimate of time required for the personal trip.He won't take 80 mins now.

Posted from my mobile device

Hi All,

Let me see if I can help clarify. The Correct answer is "C"

As a lot of you have stated, this is not a weakener, as the 'loading' etc has already been taken out of the timing equation in the paragraph. So that loading is time consuming, does not matter in the 80 min calculation.

With E though, there is a problem. The 80min estimation has been done over 5 years the question says. But E tells us that for 3 of those, the drive would have been done on a local road, but it can now be done on the freeway. So the average time now is likely to be less than the average over the past 5 years.

This means that John's journey should be estimated to take less time, hence why E does indeed weaken, and so is incorrect.

Hope this helps.

James

Premise: Delivery trips take 80 mins.
Conclusion: John's personal trip will also take 80 mins.

If the underlying conditions under which the 80 mins time frame is achieved by the delivery trips is different from those for John' personal trip, then the timing would be different and the conclusion would be weakened.

Therefore weakening statements would illustrate some difference between the delivery trips' driving condition and John's personal trip's driving condition. All options except C do so.

OE:

John assumes that his round-trip driving time between the two towns will be similar to XYZ’s average time, over the last five years, for the same round trip. Therefore, John’s conclusion will be weakened by (a) any systematic difference between John’s personal trip and XYZ’s company trips, or (b) any reason why the five-year average is not representative of the time currently required to drive between the two towns.

(A)
If this statement is true, then the five-year average commute time will not be representative of the current commute time, since the increasing congestion will have raised the current commute time to a level greater than the five-year average.

(B)
If most of XYZ’s courier vehicles are subject to speed limits lower than those for commuter automobiles, then the courier vehicles’ commute time will probably be longer than John’s commute time in his personal vehicle.

(C) Correct
The cited round-trip time specifically excludes the time required for loading, unloading, and delivery, so the length of time taken by these tasks is irrelevant to the conclusion at hand.

(D)
Since traffic patterns are highly dependent upon the time of day, the given 80-minute average cannot necessarily be expected to hold at times when XYZ does not make deliveries.

(E)
If this statement is true, then, for the first three years of the five-year period in question, the transit time between the two towns would have been much longer than that for the last two years of the period (and thus the current time). Therefore, in this case, the five-year average will not be representative of the current time.


The correct answer is C.

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