mba1382 wrote:
Thanks Mike for your explanation. I am no expert but just wanted to understand the 2 options.
Here is my understanding as below:
As you said about
option A that
Not all street crimes are violent, but obviously some are, whereas we are told that white collar crimes are "almost always non-violent", so if the white collar crimes "replace" the street crimes, that will result in a drop in violent crimes. Now as I stated in my previous posts that it doesn't really account for the decrease in violent felonies rather focuses on white crimes and moreover on street crimes (ambiguous to assume as violent felonies) . Rather this option somewhat weakens the claim as in times of prosperity, violent felonies might increase as well. In fact many other assumptions will come into play.
Now about
option B, as you mention in your explanation that
"If the police didn't have this system five years ago, that would mean at that time some violent crimes occurred, but because of filing snafus or other mistakes, the crimes weren't properly recorded.".
I thought exactly opposite might happen as posted in my previous posts with following assumption:
While reporting those violent felonies, there might be manual or human errors such redundancy i.e. same crime being reported over the years or within a year.
Since we have to make
such assumptions about options A & B , that's the reason I said that
A & B seem vague. Here I am not trying to prove anyone wrong or straying away from healthy discussions but just trying to convey my reasoning behind A & B.
Dear
mba1382,
I appreciate your criticisms, and I will do my best to address them.
I still submit that, in option
(A), you are not fully appreciating the word "
replace" and what is signifies. It says that white collar crimes "
replace" street crimes. Let's say the time of the argument is 2010, so that 2005 is "five years ago." Let's say, for simplicity, in 2005, there were
20 white collar crimes
180 street crimes
Now, fast-forward to 2010 --- let's say 100 street crimes were "replaced" with white collar crimes. Then, in 2010, we would have
120 white collar crimes
80 street crimes
In the log of how many crimes in the city, the total number stayed more or less constant, but part of the "place" held by street crimes in that total was occupied, that is, replaced, by white collar crimes.
Now, to the second point --- true, not all street crimes are violent, but clearly some percentage are. After all, many murders, gang wars, shooting, vehicular crimes, etc. occur outside, on the "streets". I have no idea the percentage --- for simplicity, let's say that 50% of street crimes are violent. From the information in prompt
(A) we can assume that 0% of white collar crimes are violent.
Thus, in 2005, we had (0% of 20) + (50% of 180) = 90 violent crimes
and, in 2010, we had (0% of 120) + (50% of 80) = 40 violent crimes
That's a drop in violent crimes.
As for option
(B): I totally agree with you, if option
(B) said only
The police now have a computerized filing system, and it is more accurate than the previous system.
then this would be open to tremendous ambiguity. We wouldn't know which way the inaccuracies of the past would have gone --- underrecording or overrecording. There could be more or fewer recorded crimes in the past, depending on the direction of the mistakes they made in the past.
Instead, the full version of option
(B) says:
The police now have a computerized filing system, so that it is almost impossible for a violent crime to be unrecorded.
Unlike the first version in red, this version implies a direction. Now, it is impossible for these crimes to be unrecorded, which clearly implies the earlier problem, the earlier issue with the previous filing system, was that some violent crimes were unrecorded.
My friend, I realize that, to some extent, I am repeating myself. I am not sure what else to say. If you are still not convinced, here's what I suggest. Call in another expert. For example,
VeritasPrepKarishma is a truly brilliant individual. Any of the
MGMAT folks would be fine --- those people are extremely sharp. Any of the moderators of the SC forum (listed at the bottom of every post) would be fine --- they're all very intelligent. Send someone along those lines a private message with a link to this thread, and ask for their explanation of the first two option. I totally admit that, since I am the author of this question, perhaps I am too biased, too close to it to see all the perspectives. Perhaps you need to hear it in someone else's words.
My friend, I want to support your understanding of GMAT CR question in any way I can. Let me know if you have any more questions for me.
Mike