Shikhar22 wrote:
Hi
AndrewN This one seems a little tricky. I am still struggling to get my head around as to why b is a better bet than D. I’d argue both do not really strengthen the argument unless we make some assumptions. So how to conclude which assumption is less far-fetched than other? Would love to know your thoughts on this one. Thank you!
Posted from my mobile deviceHello,
Shikhar22. (B) is a much better answer than (D) because of the language used to qualify the information. Notice
sharply in (B). This sort of adverbial qualifying word is quite typical of
correct CR answers, as though GMAC™ wanted to
make sure the correct answer would be harder to debate. (I discuss the issue more in
this post in the last paragraph.) You should consider the relationship between the passage and what (B) says to see how they work together.
Evidence (passage): the fact that over half of all automobiles built by the company since 1970 are still on the road today
(B) The number of automobiles built by Deluxe each year
has not increased sharply since 1970.
It would be a sleight of hand if the ad were produced by a company that had manufactured, say, 10,000 automobiles per year from 1970 to 1999 and then suddenly manufactured 1,000,000 automobiles in 2000 only to turn around and run the ad. Test the numbers to see what I mean:
\(10,000 * 30 = 300,000\)
If we consider an extreme here, perhaps all 300,000 automobiles manufactured between 1970 and 1999 were no longer on the road by the end of 2000, but
more than 650,000, half of 1.3M, of the million automobiles that had just been produced were, in fact,
still on the road today. Of course, we would expect them to be—they are new cars, after all. The evidence, while dubious with our newfound knowledge, could still be used to support the claim that
automobiles manufactured by the Deluxe Motor Car Company were highly durable. But (B) rules out this possibility. Sure, we do not know what, exactly,
sharply may mean, but at least the type of case I have outlined above could NOT have happened, and this, in turn, would at least increase the likelihood that the argument was sound.
By contrast, (D) gives us no real qualifying language. Okay, so
Deluxe has made fewer changes, but do changes necessarily translate to durability or a lack thereof? Who is to say that a forward-thinking automobile manufacturer that radically changed its designs from year to year could not also produce durable autos? Or, on the flip-side of this line of reasoning, who is to say that sticking with the
same design leads to a product that is more durable? (Maybe the design was flawed to begin with, or the parts were simply cheaper to produce the same way from year to year.) You are correct in suggesting that we need to make a major assumption to qualify this answer choice—i.e. that fewer changes equates to greater durability. Luckily, GMAC™ has decided ahead of time to drop in a patent hint in an effort to over-qualify the correct answer. Remember to look for those adverbs for guidance.
I hope that helps with this tough question. Thank you for calling my attention to it.
- Andrew