Administrator P: Government-funded research should always be accessibl

Why is B the right answer for column 2 instead of E?

GMATCoachBen I dont understand that how does ‘reply to that response’ lead to finding a statement that undermines?

Posted from my mobile device

­KarishmaB MartyMurray GMATGuruNY chetan2u Could you please help with an explanation? Thank you.
I am a bit confused by the question stem. My understanding is that "Reply to Admin Q" should weaken the Admin Q's statement in the question and "Reply to that question" will support the Admin Q's statement. Can't wrap my head around it but my reason for selecting what I did:

Reply to Admin Q: B (The humanities are unlikely to develop high-quality open-access journals, even if resources are dedicated to supporting them.)
Reason: I am attacking the fact that fewer funds toward humanities will not prevent humanities research to be published in high quality venues because they won't develop high quality open access journals at the first place.

That is, most of the fund would be directed toward research in natural science and it would prevent a significant amount of fund-supported, humanities research from being published In high-quality venues.

Reply to that question: D (In general, requiring that research be published in open-access journals will likely result in new open-access journals in the field.)
Reason: Thought this is the best of all.  

Let us look at what P suggests: He suggests that a certain government fund that funds research in humanities and natural sciences should require that the research be available to general public and be published in open access venues.
Q counters it by saying: There are more avenues for natural sciences to be published but limited for humanities as there are lesser open access venues in humanities. Thus will lead to more money being diverted to natural sciences.

Thus, Q, in the response, talks of non availability of open access venues for humanities.

P’s response, therefore , should be on the limited venues, and it is here that D fits in, in which P talks of possibility of new open access journals being started and thus hits the core of reasoning of Q that humanities has few venues.

Q, then, counters opening of new access journals for humanities on grounds that even funding would not necessarily mean new open access journals for humanities

Now, the above two exactly fit in.

Why vice versa is not correct?
Q’s initial response is on non availability of open access journals for humanities but if D was his response that is “In general, requiring that research be published in open-access journals will likely result in new open-access journals in the field.”, Q contradicts his initial stand. Now he says there is a possibility of humanities getting new open access journals.

Thus Q would contradict the very base of his initial reasoning.

 
­Thank you chetan2u. I did not understand what the question stem is asking for. Can you help explain the purple font? For example, is the first column asking to select a weakener? If yes, what is it supposed to weaken and so on...

From among the options below, select for Response to Administrator Q and for Reply to that response two statements such that the first, if true, most strongly undermines Administrator Q's argument and the second, if true, is Administrator Q's strongest reply to that response. Make only two selections, one in each column­

P has to give a reasoning that would undermine the initial argument by Q. Thereafter Q has to make a reply to this rebuttal/weakener.

Q talks of limited journals in humanities as a reason for avoiding open access.

P undermines it by saying that increase in funds would enable publishing of new open access journals in humanities.

Q responds to the above by saying that even if money is allotted humanities will have limited open access journals only.

Changed my answer slightly through new insights.

This was a tough one, for me at least. Here it is important to understand the process that the questions asks to follow. First, we need to find a weakener for the second statement and if we have that, a weakener for the weakener. So it is as if the dialog gets a second round. Now, it is important to really understand what P states and why Q answers the way he does. The conclusion of P is that publicly funded work should have a requirement that all published work that it supports be open access, assuming this would support research in both humanities and natural sciences. However, Q believes making all publicly funded research open access will have bad results for Humanities, as there are many high-quality open access venues for natural sciences but very few in the humanities, assuming that the funding requires or demands the work to be published in HIGH QUALITY VENUES. The information about high quality venues is actually new and P is not mentioning the high quality venues, so this must be clearly an assumption by Q. This follows the structure of CR questions where new information is added to the conclusion and the assumption will have to do with the new presented information, as the premise is not mentioning it. So how could we attack this new assumption? There are 2 ways: 1. by saying that high quality venues are not mandatory for publishing funded research, or 2. by not attacking this assumption directly but by providing information that this high quality venue publishing, even if true, will not have an effect as severe as the conclusion of Q proposes.

Here, P stating that new avenues for humanities will develop is the 2nd case, where the assumption is not attacked but the effects of the assumption are weakened, as P proposes that because of the publishing requirement new publishing avenues for humanities will emerge, which Q must undermine. Now, P again didn't talk about the quality of the new avenues, otherwise Q wouldn't able to attack (at least in a GMAT argument) the validity of the statement nor did it provide a statement about Humanities but about a general mechanism: requirements -> new publishing avenues, leaving a lot of room for an attack (quality, why it will not be the case with Humanities, ...). Hence, Q can attack that the avenues for Humanities won't be of high quality, attacking the general cause-effect relationship proposed by P by providing a specific example and the explanation why in this specific case the general rule will not apply, which Q does with a statement that Humanities are unlikely to develop high quality venues, even if resources are dedicated to support them.

This one is complex as it presents 2 arguments each with a conclusion and for me it was not directly clear how the conclusion of Q is connected to P. I correctly identified that P wants the publicly funded work to be open access as P assumes this will support research in humanities and natural sciences. This assumption is very important, as Q seems not to be against open access but argues that, because there are more high quality open access venues for natural sciences than for humanities, more funding would be geared toward natural sciences, assuming that publicly funded work is required to be published. And only by understanding both these assumptions was I able to find 2nd positions for both, P and Q. Not sure I will be able to duplicate that ­

­This is an awful question for the first column.

I am no expert but I can give it a try. Even I marked E.

But after reading "Admin Q's" statement, it looks like (Q) only implies that funding somehow will not have a beneficial effect on brining out the best quality 'humanities' content and most of it would be re-directed to natural sciences.

BUT (Q) never implies anything about humanities' (or any discipline's) quality or its ability to generate good quality material.

Administrator P: Government-funded research should always be accessible to the public. A certain government fund is designed to support research in the humanities and natural sciences. Therefore, the fund should have a requirement that all published work that it supports be open access (i.e., provided free of charge, with no restrictions, to people with Internet access).

Administrator Q: There are many high-quality, open-access venues for published works in the natural sciences, but very few in the humanities. The requirement would most likely have bad results. That is, most of the fund would be directed toward research in natural science and it would prevent a significant amount of fund-supported, humanities research from being published In high-quality venues.

Administrator Q has concluded the following:

The requirement would most likely have bad results. That is, most of the fund would be directed toward research in natural science and it would prevent a significant amount of fund-supported, humanities research from being published in high-quality venues.

The support for the conclusion is the following:

There are many high-quality, open-access venues for published works in the natural sciences, but very few in the humanities.

It's not made clear why requiring the published work to be open access would cause most of the fund to be directed toward research in natural science just because there are more open-access venues for published works in the natural sciences than in the humanities. At the same time, our best move is probably to just take that statement at face value and not wonder too much about why it's true.

The second part of the "bad results," which is that the requirement "would prevent a significant amount of fund-supported, humanities research from being published in high-quality venues" makes more sense. After all, if there are few open-access venues for published research in the humanities, requiring that all the research be open access would cause the humanities research to be published in those few venues, which may not be high quality.

Overall, this argument is full of gaps and assumptions, but we have to deal with it to get the question correct.

From among the options below, select for Response to Administrator Q and for Reply to that response two statements such that the first, if true, most strongly undermines Administrator Q's argument and the second, if true, is Administrator Q's strongest reply to that response. Make only two selections, one in each column.

We see that we the answer for the left column must cast doubt on Administrator Q's conclusion, and then the answer for the right column must be an effective rebuttal to the answer in the left column.

Since the right-column answer is a rebuttal to the left-column answer, probably it will work best to find the answer for the left column first and then use it to find the right-column answer.

So, let's go through the choices to first find the answer for Response to Administrator Q.

Although it may result in decreased support for research in certain disciplines, government-funded research should not be accessible to the public.

We can eliminate this choice for the left column because it goes basically in the same direction as Administrator Q's conclusion. After all, the conclusion is that the "requirement that all published work that it supports be open access" would "most likely have bad results."

So, basically, Administrator Q is against making the research accessible to the public.

So, this choice, which basically agrees with that position, is in line with, rather than undermines, Administrator Q's argument.

Eliminate for Response to Administrator Q.

The humanities are unlikely to develop high-quality open-access journals, even if resources are dedicated to supporting them.

This choice seems to be another reason why requiring humanities research to be open access would not work out. So, this choice also seem to be in line with Administrator Q's position, which is against requiring all the fund-supported research to be open access.

So, this choice can't be correct for the left column.

At the same time, this seems to have potential for being correct for the right column because it may be a good rebuttal for whatever we find for the left column.

Eliminate for Response to Administrator Q. Keep in mind for Reply to that response.

If research were open access, more individuals would read the research than would read it otherwise.

This choice is a little tricky.

It's a reason to make the research open access. So, it could seem to go against Administrator Q's argument.

However, Administrator Q isn't arguing that requiring that the research be open access would not cause more people to read it. Administrator Q's point is that requiring it to be open access would result in a reduction in the quantity of humanities research and would prevent humanities research from being published in high-quality venues.

Those issues could still be exist even if more individuals would read the research. So, this probably is not our answer.

Keep in mind for Response to Administrator Q but probably not correct.

In general, requiring that research be published in open-access journals will likely result in new open-access journals in the field.

This choice is interesting.

The support for Administrator Q's conclusion is that there are "few" high-quality, open-access venues for published works in the humanities.

So, this choice undermines the force of that evidence by showing that, while the premise may be currently true, it may not remain true if the fund has "a requirement that all published work that it supports be open access."

After all, if this choice is true, then if the fund has such a requirement, then there will be more open-access humanities journals in the future. In that case, Administrator Q's evidence no longer supports the conclusion, and the argument falls apart.

Keep for Response to Administrator Q.

For some disciplines, open-access journals tend to be of lower quality than other journals.

This choice is in line with Administrator Q's argument.

After all, part of Administrator Q's conclusion is that the requirement "would prevent a significant amount of fund-supported, humanities research from being published in high-quality venues."

That part of the conclusion is supported by this choice.

So, this choice is clearly incorrect for the left column.

It may work for the right column though. We'll see.

Eliminate for Response to Administrator Q. Keep in mind for Reply to that response.

We see that the best choice for Response to Administrator Q is the following:

In general, requiring that research be published in open-access journals will likely result in new open-access journals in the field.

The following choice also seems to go against Administrator Q's position:

If research were open access, more individuals would read the research than would read it otherwise.

However, it's not as good as the other one because it doesn't really attack the support for the conclusion.

So, the fourth choice is the best answer for Response to Administrator Q.

Let's now see which choice is best for the right column.

We need a rebuttal to the fact that making the research open access would result in an increase in the number of journals. Let's review the choices other than the one we've already chosen to see which one is an effective rebuttal.

Although it may result in decreased support for research in certain disciplines, government-funded research should not be accessible to the public.

This choice is in line with Administrator Q's conclusion but doesn't really rebut the Response to Administrator Q.

Eliminate for Reply to that response.

The humanities are unlikely to develop high-quality open-access journals, even if resources are dedicated to supporting them.

This choice is interesting.

If this choice is true, then even if the number of journals increases as a result of making the research open access, the "bad result" of the research not being published in "high-quality venues" will still exist.

So, this is an effective rebuttal to the Response to Administrator Q and is likely our correct answer.

Keep for Reply to that response.

If research were open access, more individuals would read the research than would read it otherwise.

This choice goes against Administrator Q's position. So, it can't be correct for a rebuttal of a response to that position.

Eliminate for Reply to that response.

For some disciplines, open-access journals tend to be of lower quality than other journals.

This isn't a very good rebuttal for the fact that there will likely be an increase in the number of journals.

For one thing, we don't really know whether humanities is one of the "disciplines" for which "open-access journals tend to be of lower quality than other journals."

Also, even if open-access journals tend to be of lower quality than other journals, there could still be some high-quality open access journals in humanities if new ones are created, as the Response to Administrator Q indicates they will be.

So, this choice is not as good an answer for Reply to that response as the second choice.

Eliminate for Reply to that response.

Correct answer: In general, requiring that research be published in open-access journals will likely result in new open-access journals in the field., The humanities are unlikely to develop high-quality open-access journals, even if resources are dedicated to supporting them.