On strengthen, weaken, and assumption questions, I generally start with the conclusion, stated exactly in the passage’s own words. In this case, the conclusion is basically the second and fourth sentences of the paragraph:
Quote:
This success rate, exceptionally high for university fund-raisers, does not indicate that they were doing a good job… The high success rate shows insufficient canvassing effort.
Great, and what’s the evidence to support this conclusion? Well, we know that fund-raisers have succeeded in getting donations from 80% of the potential donors they contacted, and “since the people most likely to donate are those who have donated in the past, good fund-raisers constantly try less-likely prospects in an effort to expand the donor base.”
Bottom line: the argument is accusing Smithtown’s fund-raisers of being lousy, lazy fundraisers who just keep contacting people who have donated in the past. The correct answer will support the conclusion that the fund-raisers were not “doing a good job” and that “the high success rate shows insufficient canvassing effort.”
On to the answer choices:
Quote:
(A) Smithtown University’s fund-raisers were successful in their contacts with potential donors who had never given before about as frequently as were fund-raisers for other universities in their contacts with such people.
This looks pretty good! Again: we’re trying to find support for the idea that the fund-raisers were not “doing a good job” and that “the high success rate shows insufficient canvassing effort.”
(A) is telling us that the Smithtown fund-raisers were no better than those of other universities – so that supports the idea that they were not necessarily “doing a good job.” Plus, if Smithtown’s fund-raisers were just as unsuccessful with potential new donors as other universities, then it must be the case that the “exceptionally high” 80% success rate came from targeting previous donors.
It’s hard to imagine that we’ll beat (A), but we always want to find four wrong answers –- so let’s go through the rest of them:
Quote:
(B) This year the average size of the donations to Smithtown University from new donors when the university’s fund-raisers had contacted was larger than the average size of donations from donors who had given to the university before.
Nope. If this is true, perhaps the fund-raisers deserve a cookie, but it’s not terribly relevant to the argument. We’re trying to support the idea that “the high success rate shows insufficient canvassing effort.” The SIZE of donations from new donors tells us nothing about canvassing effort.
Quote:
(C) This year most of the donations that came to Smithtown University from people who had previously donated to it were made without the university’s fund-raisers having made any contact with the donors.
This is pretty much irrelevant to the conclusion. It just tells us that a lot of people donated without being contacted. This doesn’t tell us anything about the fund-raisers’ canvassing efforts with new donors, or whether they were “doing a good job” in general.
Quote:
(D) The majority of the donations that fund-raisers succeeded in getting for Smithtown University this year were from donors who had never given to the university before.
Nope. This would definitely weaken the argument. If this is true, then the fund-raisers must have contacted a lot of new potential donors, with a high degree of success.
Quote:
(E) More than half of the money raised by Smithtown University’s fund-raisers came from donors who had never previously donated to the university.
If anything, this one weakens the argument. If (E) is true, it would be awfully hard to argue that the fundraisers were not “doing a good job” with new donors.
So (A) is our winner!
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