At Churchill High School, nearly 1,500 students are considered obese.

Question

At Churchill High School, nearly 1,500 students are considered obese. This is true even though over 1,200 students participate in extracurricular athletics or dance, activities offered by the school to promote physical fitness. Clearly, the school’s athletics and dance programs are not rigorous enough.

The above reasoning is flawed because it:

A. Fails to assess the rigor of each activity individually.
B. Does not compare Churchill High School’s programs with programs at other schools.
C. Overlooks the fact that there may be minimal overlap between the two populations cited.
D. Does not consider other factors, such as diet and genetics, that could lead to obesity in high school students.
E. Fails to adequately outline the criteria that would lead to a student being considered obese.​

akshayk · Answer

1500 Students - Obese
1200 Students - Participate in extracurricular activities
Conclusion - Activities not rigorous enough.

A - 2 Activities are rigorous, and 5 are not, for example. The author will still consider each activity as lax. And breaking down each activity, and still concluding they are not rigorous enough doesn't help us with the conclusion.
B - Irrelevant. OUT.
C - Yes! There aren't only 1500 students at the school of whom 1200 students attend activities. No information in the school supports this information, so the 2 groups might be completely different. KEEP.
D - We are only concerned with school activities, and how it's connected with obesity. OUT.
E - Irrelevant. OUT

Between A & C
C wins as it clearly states a flaw in the argument i.e. if the 2 groups are completely different, then the rigour of an activity cannot be questioned.

C is the answer.

chesstitans · Answer

stuck with C and D.
D is a good pattern in gmat, but D is out of scope in this question. Also, D is a weakener, not an assumption.
C is also an important pattern about the statistic, percentage and numbers. => C directly links with the argument.

kingyoungin211 · Answer

Can anyone please help explain why option D is incorrect?

pedromota · Answer

In my approach I saw this as irrelevant for the argument. As it's all about the physical activities:

"Clearly, the school’s  athletics and dance programs  are not rigorous enough.

The above reasoning is flawed because it"

You can have N reasons why they're still obese, but they're discussing the activities only. And C is completelly logical as you can have like 2600 students in the school, so 1500 of them are nearly obese and 1200 practice physical activities. 
It's possible that, for example, just 100 of the nearly obese practice the activities. It's a minimal overlap. So this seems the biggest flaw in the argument for me.

Bunuel · Answer

VERITAS PREP OFFICIAL SOLUTION:

This problem uses numbers that are fairly similar to each other (1200 and 1500) to make it appear that the populations are similar. But what if there are 4000 people at the school, and none of the students considered obese are among the 1200 who participate in these activities? The fatal flaw in this argument is that the two groups do not necessarily overlap at all, as answer choice C points out.

Among the other answer choices, none attack the direct premise-conclusion structure of the argument. The argument essentially says:

1500 students are obese even though 1200 students (note: not necessarily the same students!) participate in programs specifically offered to help prevent obesity. Therefore, the program is not working.

To compare the program with another school (B) or try to better define obesity (E), for example, does not deal with the given evidence and conclusion as they stand. In a method of reasoning "explain the flaw" problem like this, your job is to describe the argument as it's given, staying within the parameters of what is already there.

DebbieChats · Answer

We will be trying to poke a hole/flaw in the conclusion which is about the rigor of the extracurricular activities....

Yes C and D are up for elimination

It already states - "this is true even though" which suggests that most people do participate in the activities...so the overlap option is out...

D is correct -

There is actually a strange thing I have observed at least on Veritas -

they seem to rank correct answers based on how many people have answered it correctly - rather than the actual correct choice...I have found such cases multiple times

GMAT is a relative scoring based on how many have answered correctly/ total number of students - then some kind of evaluation

rather than

OK this seems to like 1000 students have answered choice C right out of 1000 students....so it must be C

kagrawal16 · Answer

Hi VeritasKarishma , Please help eliminate option D. My reasoning is The conclusion is causal. It says that the activities are not rigorous enough "caused" the obesity. In powerscore, we learn that- 1. x caused y. “The stated cause is “the only possible cause” of the effect and consequently the stated cause will always produce the effect”. Thats x is sufficient and necessary for y. Can be weakened by showing cause but no effect (sufficient weakener) or effect but no cause (necessary weakener). Also, the other types are 2. x causes y. here we weaken by showing cause no effect (sufficient weakener). 3. Only x causes Y. here we weaken by showing effect no cause (necessary weakener). I just hope my understanding regarding causal reasoning is correct

I felt this question did fall in type 1. So it follows that the flaw is the assumption that not rigorous activities is the only cause ? The overlapping of groups is an evident logical gap to pick C. But how to eliminate D

Also is this line of reasoning correct that - Flaw is intrinsic and assumption adds new info to the argument. Therefore any new information in the choices as in D that there are alternate causes x and y is incorrect. Hence eliminate ? Had the option been that D) it assumes that only not rigorous activities cause obesity. Would it be correct then ? OR D) it overlooks the possibility that rigorous activities might not be the only cause. Can you help ?

Fdambro294 · Answer

I’m not karishma but maybe I can help a bit?

There are 2 different question “types” that show up. The more common is the usual Weaken the Argument type question. If this were a “which one of the following weakens the conclusion” question stem, then option D would be within the realm of a possible answer. It’s not the activities fault for the obesity, D shows it’s something else.

This question falls into the rarer type of expose the flaw in the author’s logic type of question. You’re not really asked to Weaken the question per se. The question is asking you to expose a flaw in how the author used the facts and got to her conclusion (the logic/reasoning).

You have to think about what the author is assuming when she looks at the facts and makes the conclusion.

Here, the author sees 1,500 obese people and 1,200 ppl who take the extracurricular activities. She then concludes these activities are not strenuous enough.

What flaw is the author making when she looks at the facts and makes this conclusion?

She must be assuming that the 1,200 people are part of if not all of the 1,500 people who are obese. Otherwise her conclusion would not make sense. This is the flaw in her logic. No where does it say that the people have to be the same. There could be 100,000 kids at this school: the 1,200 are perfectly fit while the 1,500 do not even take the activities and are obese.

The author is not considering this. If she did, then it’s an assumption she made and it’s faulty.

Hopefully something helps?

Actually the powerscore book has a good section that goes over these types of questions. I believe they call them “method of reasoning” or “flaw in the reasoning” q types.

I do remember a good section where powerscore goes over all the different types of reasoning errors that show up time and time again.

Errors of Composition, errors of division, “straw man”, etc.

Posted from my mobile device

kagrawal16 · Answer

Hey thanks,

All the help is welcome.

But isn’t another flaw that the argument assumes that only x is the cause.

The weakener in d shows alternate cause exists to violate the assumption that x is the only cause.

The argument assuming something is a flaw.

My question stays had it been
D) x is the only cause. Would this be correct

Then my line of reasoning ( last 2 line of my above post )of is correct that d is wrong because it presents new information.

KarishmaB · Answer

Argument:

1500 students are considered obese. (we don't know percentage and that is the first thing I notice about this sentence)
1200 students participate in extra currics offered to promote fitness. (again no percentages)

Conclusion: The school’s athletics and dance programs are not rigorous enough.

Based on absolute numbers of 1500 obese children and 1200 participants, the argument is concluding about the programs not being effective. The cause of obesity is not discussed. We are told that these are fitness programs - it could be diet, genetics whatever. The point is the argument is making that the fitness programs are not effective.

A major flaw in the argument related to program and its impact - that these 1500 and 1200 may be disjoint sets or have minimal overlap. What if the school has 3700 students - 1500 obese and other 1200 who participate in fitness programs. Then can we say that fitness programs are not effective? No.

kagrawal16 
When looking for a flaw in an argument, focus on the parameters it is discussing and whether they make sense. Other parameters could have impact too but we are not discussing those. The point is whether the given parameter X has the impact the argument claims it does (or doesn't).

Option (C) is correct. 
 
A. Fails to assess the rigor of each activity individually.

The argument is discussing the impact of all programs together.

B. Does not compare Churchill High School’s programs with programs at other schools.

Other schools programs are irrelevant to the effectiveness of the programs of this school.

D. Does not consider other factors, such as diet and genetics, that could lead to obesity in high school students.

The causes of obesity are irrelevant. What makes students obese doesn't matter. The point is that the fitness programs are not doing enough to counter the impact of these other reasons.

E. Fails to adequately outline the criteria that would lead to a student being considered obese.​

The exact definition of obesity is irrelevant. There are some parameters used to define obesity and those are used, whatever they may be.

kagrawal16 · Answer

Oh!

The conclusion is an implication here and not an explanation of the cause of their obesity. I had a similar issue in this experiment question too - Scientist: In an experiment, dogs had access to a handle they could pull to release food into a nearby enclosure that contained a familiar dog and nothing else, contained an unfamiliar dog and nothing else, or was empty. The dogs typically released more food to the familiar dog than to the unfamiliar dog. This suggests that dogs are more motivated to help other dogs they know than to help unfamiliar dogs. The scientist's argument would be most strengthened if it were true that, in the experiment, the dogs with access to the handle tended to release more food when The conclusion very much feels like attributing a reason why the dog helped but its more an implication that we are drawing from the premises. And if i am right then, based on similar logic, we can say in the below question, we want to speak of what follows choice D and not attribute a cause Choice C. Scientist: A greenhouse gas, for example, carbon dioxide, forms a transparent layer that traps solar heat beneath it in the earth's atmosphere. Atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide are currently increasing, causing the climate to warm—an effect that is predicted by at least one computer model of the greenhouse effect. But the warming that has occurred is a great deal less than what would be expected based on the model. Therefore, _______. C. there are factors besides the increase in greenhouse-gas emissions contributing to the warming of the climate D. the computer model of the greenhouse effect must be incorrect in some respect

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At Churchill High School, nearly 1,500 students are considered obese.

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