People tend to estimate the likelihood of an events occurrence accord

I would say (C). From what we know, perceived likelihood of occurrence is caused by two variables: strength of coverage, & frequency of coverage. Right now, we know that newspapers' coverage of local crime is stronger than that of non-local crime, nothing is said about frequency of coverage, so we can't assume anything about it. However, all else being equal, we can assume that people tend to think the quantity of local crime outnumbers that of non-local crimes.

A - This is a value judgment that is way out of scope.
B - No, local CRIME is covered more than int'l events, not local events. Crime (hopefully) isn't the only event.
D - Out of scope, this is a comparison of local crime coverage Vs. other events & non-local crimes. Something can be local, but it might not be personal.
E - The original info is a comparison between what the press covers, it is not a comparison of the press to other mediums of information, which this choice suggests.

C is the right answer.
E uses extreme language. While it may be true that the press focuses people's attention most strongly on local crimes, it may not necessarily be so. This is not mandatory. Hence E is out.

Yes, you are right. The word mentioned in the argument is that newspapers "emphasize" local events. The papers might cover other events but the emphasis is more on local events. So "B" is out because of the word "coverage".

Bunuel , gmat1393 the wording of the highlighted part of the text i think is erroneous. it must be at least by placement of headlines

bb , generis:? If the first sentense puts an emphasis on "frequency being noticible" then second sentence must begin with " By placement OF:grin::lol:­

generis VeritasKarishma GMATNinja

I marked D as answer.However, the answer is C.

My thoughts:-



Newspapers put more emphasis on local crime stories than on crime stories elsewhere.

Firstly, I think this is an inference question? Correct me if I am wrong.



Secondly option C puts the onus on readers and says that readers overestimate local crimes.

But this is not what the argument is saying.



Option D seems to echo the thoughts presented in the question.

Please help

Take another look at exactly how the passage defines "salience": "how strongly and how often [an event] comes to [one's] attention." This is very different than saying that the likelihood of an event is dependent on the factors you mentioned in your analysis -- instead of looking objectively at "how strong an event is" or its "frequency of occurrence," people are influenced by how strongly and often something is brought to their attention.

Newspapers "emphasize stories about local crime over stories about crime elsewhere and about many other major events." So, newspapers call the attention of readers to certain stories over others, which will in turn impact the readers' estimate of how likely those events are to occur.

Based on this understanding, let's take another look at the question:

So, we are looking for an answer statement that "can be concluded" from the information in the passage.


From the passage, we know that "newspapers emphasize stories about local crime over stories about crime elsewhere," and that people estimate the likelihood of something occurring based on "how strongly and how often it comes to their attention." So, we can properly conclude that readers of local papers will have local crime brought to their attention more, and thus will tend to overestimate local crime relative to crime in other areas.

(C) is correct.

Now look again at (D):

The passage tells us how salience affects people's estimate of the likelihood of an event, and then provides information about how newspapers emphasize certain stories over others. We do not have any information about how the salience of "personal experiences" stacks up against the salience of newspaper stories -- so we cannot conclude that (D) is true based on the information in the passage. (D) is out.

I hope that helps!

GMATNinja Thank you . I can relate option C to the argument.

I was between (B) and (C)

NEED to be careful when reading answer choice (B) - it says local EVENTS. Premise only covers local crime news. Therefore, (B) is out.

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