A greater number of newspapers are sold in Town S than in Town T. Ther

The passage tell us that more newspapers are sold in Town S that in Town T. But does that necessarily mean that the people in Town S read more news than people in Town T? The number of newspapers sold doesn't necessarily tell us anything about the amount of news that is read.

For example, maybe most people in Town S buy a newspaper, read a few headlines, and then throw it out. Or perhaps the newspapers sold in Town S are not very thorough (i.e. do not contain many news stories).

The people in Town T might buy fewer newspapers on average. But maybe the average newspaper in Town T is much longer and contains more news. Maybe the average person in Town T spends much more time actually reading the news, even though they don't buy as many newspapers.

Choice (C) would indeed weaken the conclusion, so it must be eliminated.

And welcome to GMAT Club, ariagrwl!

A greater number of newspapers are sold in Town S than in Town T. Therefore, the citizens of Town S are better informed about major world events than are the citizens of Town T.

Each of the following, if true, weakens the conclusion above EXCEPT:

(A) Town S has a larger population than Town T. -Weakener. If 500 out of 1000 buy newspaper in S and if 90 out of 100 buy newspaper in T then the argument goes for a toss

(B) Most citizens of Town T work in Town S and buy their newspapers there. -Clear weakener

(C) The average citizen of Town S spends less time reading newspapers than does the average citizen of Town T. -Clear weakener

(D) A weekly newspaper restricted to the coverage of local events is published in Town S. -The sales of a local newspaper is the cause of higher sales in S than in T. Thus, people in S won't be more educated about the "world" news than people in T. Weakener

(E) The average newsstand price of newspapers sold in Town S is lower than the average price of newspapers sold in Town T. -Irrelevant to the argument and thus correct choice

nightblade354 VeritasPrepKarishma

Can you please help me out here with my reasoning and PoE?


Premise: Greater number of newspapers sold in S than in T.
Conclusion: Citizens of S are more informed than of T.
A huge leap of sales of newspapers vs people being educated from them is made here.

Possible weakener: Internet is cheaper in S and all major news are covered on net.


Cross out anything in answer choice that weakens above argument:


gmatexam439 I could not follow you in explanations. How is number of people residing in either town
linked with the knowledge they gain from newspapers?

Same query as above: How is working in a particular town linked with not gaining / gaining
knowledge about major events?



GMATNinja , I apologize that in few of rare instances, I could not understand your earlier explanation.
The average here refers to fraction : total no of news articles read to total population?


gmatexam439 but does not as in (D) , (E) too provides an alternative explanation (sales) than the number of newspapers sold that
are responsible for people to gather more world news. If average price of newspapers in S is low average price of newspapers
in T (here average means: total price of newspapers / total no of newspapers sold) then more no of newspapers are sold in S (reducing denominaotor
of fraction will increase overall fraction)

adkikani,

Glad to help. (E) is absolutely, positively, 100 percently the answer. Who cares about price? If more newspapers are sold, how does price affect an already sold newspaper? It doesn't. This question isn't posed around income or revenue, it is about the information gathered. We don't care how much that information costs. This doesn't STRENGTHEN the argument, but it doesn't weaken it either. Hence, this is the answer. If you feel confused, I believe the people above will answer your inquiries about their specific posts, but know that if one answer is 100% correct and irrefutable, go with it!

(A) Town S has a larger population than Town T. - If the town has S has more population than town T and the conclusion did not take this into account. So, this weakens the conclusion as it cannot be better informed based on sales.

(B) Most citizens of Town T work in Town S and buy their newspapers there. - This accounts for some sales in S and so increase in sales in not totally accountable to informedness.

(C) The average citizen of Town S spends less time reading newspapers than does the average citizen of Town T. -Buying the newspaper does not guarantee the factor of informedness. As it is stated that people in town S read less than people of town T. This weakens the conclusion.

(D) A weekly newspaper restricted to the coverage of local events is published in Town S. - This increases the possibility of town S to have more knowledge and may weaken but not sure.

(E) The average newsstand price of newspapers sold in Town S is lower than the average price of newspapers sold in Town T. - As the prices are low and sales are high, this implies that more people are buying and there is a possibility that they are getting more informed so this option kind of strengthens the conclusion.

Amond D and E.
I choose E.

Can anyone explain a good reason why E and not D?

VeritasKarishma GMATNinja

Could I possibly ask you for your take on answer choice D? I was deciding between D and E and went with D.

My reasoning: if there is one newspaper that focuses on local news then so what? From the prompt we know that there is a greater number of newspapers sold in Town S. Thank you.

Yes, we know that a greater number of newspapers are sold in town S. On the basis of this, we are saying that people of S are more well informed about GLOBAL EVENTS.

Now, if we come to know that one of the newspapers is local news only, it does bring our conclusion in question since our conclusion is based on number of newspapers sold only. If some of those sold do not discuss global events, we are not sure that people of A are more well informed about global events. Note that a weakener needs to bring doubt regarding the conclusion. It doesn't need to prove that the conclusion is false.

According to the passage, the citizens of Town S are better informed about major world events than are the citizens of Town T because the number of newspapers sold in Town S are greater than in Town T.

Each of the following, if true, weakens the conclusion above EXCEPT:

We have to find a point which don't weakens the passage, that doesn't mean it have to strengthen passage either.

(A) Town S has a larger population than Town T.(This weaken the passage, let's say the population of town S is 10 million and Town T is 5 million. So even if 4 million purchase newpaper in Town T and Town S people purchase 6 million paper. The people of Town T are more informed as 80% population of Town T are reading newspaper as compared to 60% of Town S)(Correct)

(B) Most citizens of Town T work in Town S and buy their newspapers there.(So if the population of Town S consist of population of Town T as well, the population of Town T is more informed than Town S people as they are purchasing newspaper in Town S hence increasing the purchase unit of town S but not increasing the information among town S people) (Correct)

(C) The average citizen of Town S spends less time reading newspapers than does the average citizen of Town T. (Average is total reading time/total population so if average of town S is less than town T, town T people read more newspaper. Weakening the statement) (Correct)

(D) A weekly newspaper restricted to the coverage of local events is published in Town S.(if the newspaper is town S is covering only local news, then we can't say they are more informed about everything than town T, information consist all type of information, local or domestically. Even though they are not talking about town T people all we need to prove is that town S people are not exactly well informed. Weakening the statement) (Correct)

(E) The average newsstand price of newspapers sold in Town S is lower than the average price of newspapers sold in Town T.(The statement have nothing to do with either strengthening or weakening the statement, the price of newspaper stand has nothing to do information level of either town) (Incorrect)

Answer is E

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VeritasKarishma GMATNinja AndrewN nightblade354 egmat yashikaaggarwal

I have a doubt in option D and E. I marked D.

My reasoning:-
A weekly newspaper is published in Town S . Ok I get this. But does publishing means people are actually buying it?? Some residents may or may not buy. We are making an assumption here that publishing of a newspaper is related to buying. If that is the case, this option will weaken.

Coming to this option. If we can make an assumption in option D above to weaken that option, here also an assumption can be made. Since average newspaper price in Town S is lower than that in Town T, people in town S buy more newspaper. This option thus weakens.

Kindly let me know where am I going wrong??

More newspapers are sold in town S.

Conclusion: People of town S are better informed about major world events. (because more of them read newspapers)

We need to find 4 options that weaken this conclusion. So we need 4 options that say that people of town S may not be better informed of major world events.

(E) The average newsstand price of newspapers sold in Town S is lower than the average price of newspapers sold in Town T.
This could be the reason why more papers are sold in town S or it may have nothing to do with how many papers are sold or since more papers are sold so papers could be cheaper, but whatever may be the case, does it mean people of town S may not be better informed about world events? No.
If more papers are sold in town S (whatever may be the reason for more), then people of town S are better informed as per our conclusion. Knowing that papers are cheaper in S does not indicate in any way that people of S are not better informed.
So (E) does not weaken the conclusion and hence is the answer.

(D) A weekly newspaper restricted to the coverage of local events is published in Town S.
This explains why people of town S may NOT be better informed of world events though more papers are sold there. If local events papers are sold, they may be responsible for the extra papers sold.
Note that when we say this paper is published, it means there is "some" circulation at least. We cannot say that nobody may be buying it. It makes no business and logical sense to keep printing paper that nobody buys.
In any case, option (D) gives us an indication why inspite of having higher circulation of newspapers, town S people may not be better informed of world events. So it certainly makes us doubt our conclusion.

GMATNinja KarishmaB GMATIntensive I believe that this argument has some grey area.

If we look at (E) we are given a reason why more newspapers are sold in S than in T. So we could have a scenario wherein people from T (or other areas) could come to S to purchase the newspapers. Hence, though more newspapers are sold, we cannot conclude that people of S are better informed. ---> Something in the lines of option (B)

In (E), we are not given what the impact of cheaper papers in S is. What if option (B) were not given to you? You would not have assumed this scenario because it is not reasonable to assume. Each option has to be taken independently. If an option seems to be the answer because it could strengthen or weaken in a certain possible scenario out of many other possible scenarios, it is not the answer. We don't know if the said scenario plays out (i.e. whether people from T come to buy from S). It is reasonable to assume that people buy newspapers from their own cities until and unless mentioned otherwise.

The only reasonable implication of cheaper newspapers is that more people can afford it or are willing to buy it regularly. If more people in S buy it, then they may be better informed about world events. But why they may be better informed is not to be debated and that is what option (E) tells us. We have to talk about whether they are better informed or not.

can someone tell me how can we safely assume the answer is D? What if the sales of local newspaper, as mentioned in D, is smaller than the difference in total newspaper sales between the the two towns? say 100 are sold in T and 200 in S. Out of the 200 only 2 copies are of the local newspaper. GMATNinja

The correct answer to this question is actually (E), not (D). But you raise a good question: how can we eliminate (D)?

As you suggest, (D) does not destroy the conclusion. It's possible that the number of papers "restricted to the coverage of local events" sold in Town S is quite small, or it could be quite large -- we simply don't know.

But keep in mind, for (D) to be wrong, it doesn't need to destroy the argument, it just needs to weaken it. And the fact that some local papers are sold in Town S weakens the argument (even if we don't know exactly how many).

Remember that the conclusion depends on the fact that more newspapers are sold in Town S than Town T. So the fact the some papers are sold in Town S which don't cover major world events can only weaken the argument. If it's a large number, it really weakens it. if it's a small number, it only slightly weakens it. But either way, (D) weakens the argument, and we can discard it.

I hope that helps!

Hi Experts
I have doubt in option D and option E
D) It states that weekly newspaper is published in Town S. It doesn't mean that if the paper is published in Town S then people are buying that local newspaper. They might still be buying the national newspaper. So according to me it doesn't have any impact on argument
E) The average price of newspaper sold in town S is less than that in Town T. If the price of newspaper is less in Town S. then there are chances that people in Town S are buying reading more news. So there is a slight possibility that people in Town S are more educated towards world news. So this strengthens our conclusion.

This choice still casts doubt on the conclusion.

The conclusion is that "the citizens of Town S are better informed about major world events."

That conclusion is based on only one fact, the fact that "A greater number of newspapers are sold in Town S than in Town T."

So, the information provided by (D) weakens the argument by indicating that, even though "a greater number of newspapers are sold in Town S," the citizens of Town S may not be better informed about world events because it's quite possible that "A greater number of newspapers are sold in Town S than in Town T" only because people are reading the local paper.

We already know from the passage that "A greater number of newspapers are sold in Town S than in Town T."

So, the information about pricing provided by (E) doesn't change what we know about how many newspapers are sold in Town S. Thus, (E) has no effect on the argument.

Hi KarishmaB doesn't the lower avg price of newspapers in Town S suggest that because the cost is lower hence more newspapers are sold?

It seems like a weaker to me. The logic about economies of scale is not mentioned anywhere in the question