Patthetuck wrote:
I second the detailed explaination...
Why isn't it A? Question mentions nothing about an increase in divorce rates...
A. There will always be some marriages that end in divorce.
B. The divorce rate has not become significantly higher in recent years, compared to the past.
C. Approximately 25% of Americans will be divorced at some point in their lives.
D. Michael’s statistics are, in fact, accurate.
E. Once someone has been divorced the first time, it becomes more likely that he or she will have a second divorce.
If you have narrowed it down to A/ B you can ty to use the assumption negation technique.
Consider Jason's argument:
Jason: Your
statistic doesn't mean that much. With up to
50% of marriages ending in divorce, nearly everyone in America either
will be divorced or
will know someone who is divorced in their lifetime.
Lets try statement A first:
There will always be some marriages that end in divorce. <-negation-> Some marriages
NOT ALWAYS end in divorce. With this we have to find that the negated assumption attacks the argument or not, which in fact does not because there will still be some marriages which end up in divorce!
Statement B.
The divorce rate has not become significantly higher in recent years, compared to the past. <-negation-> The divorce rate
HAS become significantly higher in recent years, compared to the past.
It means more and more people have been filing for divorce in recent years ,say if earlier 10 people used to file divorce, now the figure arose to 20.This clearly attacks the argument that 50% marriages always end up in divorce or people know some one who is divorced because now there will now be much larger percentage of divorcees than the previous figure of 50%.
I may be wrong but this is how i eliminated A. Hope my explanation helps.