90% of the dentists we surveyed state that they prefer

I haven't seen such a question stem earlier. Hence, got stumped. The Stem says 'Which of the following is an example of dubious reasoning in the argument?' . Does this mean that we have to make the argument seem dubious ? Any thoughts ?

to make the argument dubious means u have to create the flaws in argument ----->or u have to find faults with the argument !!

Thanks. But, my doubt remains as is. The question stem creates ambiguity by introducing the word example.

A seems out of scope to me. B seems to be the only plausible choice(However, B too is not making much sense to me).
Experts please comment.

Agree.
I also chose B, and can't really see why A would be the correct answer.
Can anyone help?

Answer: A.
Reason:
Statement say dentists prefer GG over other gums but for what? Maybe for taste and not so much for good dental health. so this makes is dubious based on claims made by the commercial.

Can't the same logic be used to select B as the correct answer?
What is the difference between the two?

My Answer was B as well. I really don't understand the difference between A and B.

The Break-Up Method :
Conclusion : if you care about great taste and great dental health, trust the experts and pick up Galactico gum.
Words to focus on : 1) great taste and great dental health 2) the experts

Premises :
1) 90% of the dentists surveyed state that they prefer Galactico gum.
2) Galactico gum is the only gum proven to help bad breath and gingivitis
3) evaluated and approved by the federal health authority

Elimination of Answer Choices :

Statement E - Conclusion is to prevent bad breath and dental problems and not about likes and dislikes. SO CROSSED.

Statement D - The use of word "MIGHT RECOMMEND" calls for an added assumption that dentists/experts prescribe other gums but none of the premises support this. SO CROSSED

Statement C - The use of word "FEW CONSUMERS" is questionable because most of the consumers might care about dental health. So this statement in no way weakens the conclusion. SO CROSSED.

Statement B - Great taste and great dental health need not go together. No premise given can be used to prove this statement to be true. SO CROSSED .

Statement A - Compares "DENTISTS" with "EXPERTS" and 90 % of dentists may or may not represent the Dentists who are supposed to be Experts. This statement has a direct attack on a premise and hence can do the most damage to the conclusion. SO SELECTED..

I chose A. We don't know if the dentists are a representative sampling or whether there is bias involved.

Responding to a pm:

Alarms should start ringing whenever you see percentages in a GMAT critical reasoning question, as percentages require context that CR stimuli almost never supply. In this case, 90% sounds great, but if that 90% means 90% of 10 incompetent dentists or 90% of 100 bribed dentists it isn’t a very impressive figure, is it? If we don’t know what sample that 90% comes from, we can’t say if it’s a resounding endorsement of Galactico gum, so (A) is the best answer here.

(B) is not correct. The problem with the argument is not "Great taste and great dental health need not go together."
The argument does not say that great taste and great dental health should go together. It only says that in this product, they do go together. The commercial gives you premises that give support to dental health and then tells you that the gum has taste and health benefits so if you want those, go for the gum. It doesn't imply that great taste comes automatically with great health. Just that in this product, both are present.[/quote
Dear Karishma

Have been following veritas material where it says paradox questions should be treated like strengthen questions...wonder how option A is strengthening the conclusion? If at all, Iam afraid it weakens.

Dear Karishma

Have been following veritas material where it says paradox questions should be treated like strengthen questions...wonder how option A is strengthening the conclusion? If at all, Iam afraid it weakens.[/quote]

This is not a paradox question. It is a weaken question.
"Which of the following is an example of dubious reasoning in the argument?" - you are looking for the fault in the reasoning. Therefore, answer (A) checks out.
Why did you think that the question has two conflicting situations?

This is correct (sample size could be small), but A does not say that. It questions the method used to survey the participants. This could be for example face to face interviews, phone interviews, online surveys, self reporting, likert scales etc etc etc. The explanation provided in red speaks about sample size. In research, you wouldn't relate the method that was used to survey a participant with the sample size. You could say for example that the results are not valid, because the sample size could be small. And this would be a restriction of the survey.

In any case, this could be a possible answer to each one of these research related questions, unless every one of them speaks about sample size in the stem.

In my opinion none of the answer choices fits. A is the least wrong, but I believe that it is still wrong.

Can somebody spot error in choice D

Was stuck b/w A and D

Choose D considering the info in the stimulus correct.

It doesn't matter how you define "method of survey" - the generic, all-encompassing answer to "How did you conduct the survey?" which includes everything or the much more specific "what questions did you ask?" - point is, we are raising concern about the validity of the survey and that is a valid point. GMAT doesn't expect you to decide on the definition you are going to apply to the given terms - it will not matter in any case.
A biased questionnaire could have been used for the survey - for example:
In your opinion, how much did Galactico help in reducing bad breath?
1. 25%
2. 50%
3. 75%
4. 100%
In your opinion, how much did ABC gum help in reducing bad breath?
1. 0%
2. 25%
3. 50%
4. 75%

In any case, answer (A) works.

(D) is not correct. The argument says,
"90% of the dentists we surveyed state that they prefer Galactico gum to any of its competitors"

So, dentists might recommend other gums too, but according to the survey, they prefer Galactico over all others. They may recommend Galactico the most. So option (D) does not find a weakness in our argument.

THE ANSWER IS A

Explaination :- Relative percentage can easily disguise reality.
In fact this is the most common trick used by advertiser to fool consumers in real life. Pepsi, Toyota, Nike, Levi's, McDonalds all have used this trick one time in the past to fool the customers.

There are 10,000 dentist.
Gum company surveyed only 10 dentist.
90% of 10 is 9 dentist.

The gum company made the claim about their chewing gum based on the positive response of 9 dentist. This is absurd, ludicrous and totally wrong.
9 dentist is not a big enough sample to correctly represent the total population size of the all the dentists.
Also possible is that the kids of all these 10 dentist are manager, shareholders, advertisers, suppliers of the gum. This makes the dentist endorsement suspect.

Reasoning is flawed

HENCE A