VeritasPrepKarishma wrote:
djanand wrote:
Commercial: 90% of the dentists we surveyed state that they prefer Galactico gum to any of its competitors, and why wouldn’t they? Galactico gum is the only gum proven to help bad breath and gingivitis, statements that have been evaluated and approved by the federal health authority. So if you care about great taste and great dental health, trust the experts and pick up Galactico gum.
Which of the following is an example of dubious reasoning in the argument?
A. The method used to survey the dentists is not given.
B. Great taste and great dental health need not go together.
C. Few consumers care about great dental health
D. The dentists might also recommend a number of other gums.
E. Galactico gum may not be to everyone’s liking.
Please provide explanations.
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.
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.