anud33p wrote:
In general, I never question official answers but this is one, wherein I would respectfully disagree with the OA. Infact, I don't think this will EVER be correct on GMAT. The reasons are two-fold. Firstly,
E assumes that exercise programs are the only way for the public to exercise. This seems to imply that if I don't join a gym, I can't exercise? I think that is a very poor assumption, no? Moreover, it says beyond the means of "many" people. Per GMAT terminology, many = 2 or more. How this can ever be correct is beyond me.
Here is my analysis:
• School health programs already educate middle-school students about the issue:
"A" follows a common paradigm I have observed in several other similar questions - A is a proxy for saying that people are already aware of whatever the government plans to educate the public on. It is analogous to this: The government plans to curb smoking by educating people on the pitfalls .. But if you say the public is already aware of the pitfalls, it massively weakens the argument. • The public already has access to this information through the Internet: Having access to some information is not the same as being informed and educated or knowledgeable about it.
• Food companies encourage the public to indulge in unhealthful snacks: I don't think anyone will even consider this
• The government has not set aside money for such a program: Out of scope
• Healthful foods and exercise programs are beyond the financial means of many people: As explained above, I seriously doubt this can be the right answer.
But I would greatly appreciate if someone could delineate where I am going wrong.
souvik101990 GMATNinjaThis is from Manhattan and not from the official guides. Having said that I think this question is correct.
Question is of type Weaken. The answer choices should weaken the conclusion.
You said - "Firstly, E assumes that exercise programs are the only way for the public to exercise."
No it does not. It says they are beyond the means of people.
It gives a possible answer which weakens the conclusion.
Many = 2 or more, that is correct!
But it can be a lot more than 2 as well. So in a lot of cases this will weaken the conclusion. This is good enough for a weaken type question. It does not need to destroy the argument, all it needs to do is weaken it.
With A there are a lot of issues.
A. School health programs already educate middle-school students about the issue.
1. We do not know if the school health programs have recently started, say 2 years back. If that is the case, then most adults would not be educated.
2. We do not know if adults need a refresher, as they might have forgotten as it was so long ago.
3. Even if we assume that the adults know this already (via middle school classes), it does not weaken the effectiveness of these adult classes. Think about it from a real life perspective, if someone reinforces the idea of drinking plenty of water and stay hydrated it would only help us. In our busy lives we might not pay attention to the benefits of water, even if we know it is good for us. So the person reminding us (here analogy for adult classes) is not undermining the effectiveness of it.