At Atalanta High School, almost all varsity athletes - CR

Starfruit Thanks!

Not sure how option A is weakening the arguement. Since Most (more than 50%) students play more than one sport, then defintely they are not able to score higher due to time constraints.

Hi Yogesh_24

It’s a concept from overlapping sets/ venn diagrams in quant.
If from the given number of athletes ( which would make up 55% if each played only a single sport) most play more than 1 sport (i.e. more than 50% of these students representing the 55% play two or more sports) then the total percentage (55%) will fall down.

For example: Look at the figure attached-


So, students not performing at high level in all their courses will also fall down to less than half (<50% of the school).

Hope it helps

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Answer : A

The argument would like us to believe that the majority of varsity students choose to be varsity athletes and that these varsity athletes then go on to choose sports that uses up all of their time hence leaving them with very little time on any given day throughout the year to focus on academics.

Option A weakens this straight out by bringing in information that clarifies that:
1. The entire student population does not simply get split into 20%:20%:15% as claimed in the argument. One student usually plays more than on sport. Effectively meaning that the same student probably plays all three and hence there is an overlap and that these percentages do not take into account these overlaps.
2. Over and above the sports don’t overlap in season that it requires a student to spend all their time in practice of all sports every single day of the year. As the season is spread out, the amount of time spent on each sport is restricted and thereby leaving enough time for academic pursuits.

Option B & D do not weaken the main argument about large number of athletes not having enough time to study as they are busy playing/practicing sport. There are too many external factors that affect the ability to perform. Such as : clinical conditions for basis of study , links available for study to family for classes missed. The focus in on out of class study not the time used up for in class study.

Option C says some of the “students” & does not specify athletes. Secondly it focuses on in class study vs out of class study, the argument focuses on out of class study done outside of school time, hence this option too is incorrect.

Option E focuses on athletic requirements vs academic requirements and hence incorrect.

Conclusion: Most students won't perform well academically
Reasoning for the conclusion: Varsity players don't have enough time to dedicate to studying. Hence they are likely to perform poorly. --> 20%S=BT; 20%S=BskT; 15%S=FT.
Assumption: There is no significant overlapping among varsity players.

Now let's imagine that the 20% of students playing in the basketball team play also in the football team and in the baseball team. This would mean that only 20% of students play in varsity teams and hence we cannot conclude that most of the students won't perform well in their academic subjects.

Option choice A is therefore correct since in line with such reasoning.

GMATNinja generic can u pls explain why D is not correct ?