Consumer: The latest Connorly Report suggests that Ocksenfre

Question

Consumer : The latest Connorly Report suggests that Ocksenfrey prepackaged meals are virtually devoid of nutritional value. But the Connorly Report is commissioned by Danto Foods, Ocksenfrey’s largest corporate rival, and early drafts of the report are submitted for approval to Danto Foods’ public relations department. Because of the obvious bias of this report, it is clear that Ocksenfrey’s prepackaged meals really are nutritious.

The reasoning in the consumer’s argument is most vulnerable to criticism on the grounds that the argument

(A) treats evidence that there is an apparent bias as evidence that the Connorly Report’s claims are false

(B) draws a conclusion based solely on an unrepresentative sample of Ocksenfrey’s products

(C) fails to take into account the possibility that Ocksenfrey has just as much motivation to create negative publicity for Danto as Danto has to create negative publicity for Ocksenfrey

(D) fails to provide evidence that Danto Foods’ prepackaged meals are not more nutritious than Ocksenfrey’s are

(E) presumes, without providing justification, that Danto Foods’ public relations department would not approve a draft of a report that was hostile to Danto Foods’ products

Source: LSAT

mikemcgarry · Accepted Answer

Dear GmatDestroyer2013 & akash03 , I'm happy to respond. :-)

Apparently this is LSAT question, and these are typically a bit harder than than GMAT CR. This is a high quality question, and very tricky. Let's focus on the exact conclusion. " Because of the obvious bias of this report, it is clear that Ocksenfrey’s prepackaged meals really are nutritious ." The consumer establishes that there would likely be some bias, but from there, makes the extraordinary leap that what the biased parties were saying is wrong, viz. Ocksenfrey’s meals are nutritious. That's a huge leap. Let's look at (D) : (D) fails to provide evidence that Danto Foods’ prepackaged meals are not more nutritious than Ocksenfrey’s are Technically, Danto Food's meals aren't discussed at all. Yes, of course, the folks at Danto Foods would also like to claim that their own meals are nutritious, but technically, the question here analyzes only whether Ocksenfrey’s meals are nutritious, and no explicit comparison to Danto Foods’ meals is made. That's why (D) is not correct. Let's look at (E) : (E) presumes, without providing justification, that Danto Foods’ public relations department would not approve a draft of a report that was hostile to Danto Foods’ products Suppose it were absolutely and objectively true that Ocksenfrey’s meals contain no nutritional value. Well, then, the Connorly Report would be 100% accurate on its own, and Danto Foods’ public relations department would have absolutely no complaint with it. In other words, in order for this fact to be something that comes into play, we need to assume that the conclusion is true . If it really were the case that Ocksenfrey’s meals are highly nutritious, then conceivable that would be threatening to the folks at Danto Food's, and that PR department would block or alter the report. Yes, that would be important, IF Ocksenfrey’s meals really are nutritious, but if Ocksenfrey’s meals are not nutritious, then the Danto Food's PR department is irrelevant. That's why (E) is incorrect. Choice (A) addresses the big leap made in the concluding line, the leap from the possible existence of bias to a sweeping judgment that the conclusion is wrong. That is too much. Sometimes biased people and biased corporate bodies happen to say things that are true. Obviously biased and obviously wrong don't necessarily go together. Does all this make sense? Mike :-)

KarishmaB · Answer

Premises:
- Connorly report says that O's meals have no nutrition.
- Connorly reports are commissioned by D foods, O's rival. 
- Early drafts of the report are submitted for approval to D Foods.
- There is an obvious bias of this report

Conclusion: 
O's meals are nutritious.

The premises establish that there is bias in the report (because of the involvement of the rival). So what can we say? That the report's conclusions are biased so not to be trusted. It means we should ignore the report's conclusions. But can we establish the reverse from this? Can we establish that the meals are actually nutritious? No. We can say that the report should be ignored but not that it must be false and the reverse must be true.

(A) treats evidence that there is an apparent bias as evidence that the Connorly Report’s claims are false

Correct. The argument gives evidence of bias, not of establishing the report's claims as false. Saying that O's meals are actually nutritious is claiming the report's claim is false. This is a failure of the argument.

(B) draws a conclusion based solely on an unrepresentative sample of Ocksenfrey’s products

No information on sampled products.

(C) fails to take into account the possibility that Ocksenfrey has just as much motivation to create negative publicity for Danto as Danto has to create negative publicity for Ocksenfrey

Irrelevant. Whether O defames D too is not the subject of discussion.

(D) fails to provide evidence that Danto Foods’ prepackaged meals are not more nutritious than Ocksenfrey’s are

Irrelevant. Comparative nutrition of the two is not the subject of discussion.

(E) presumes, without providing justification, that Danto Foods’ public relations department would not approve a draft of a report that was hostile to Danto Foods’ products

The argument presumes nothing about D foods products. What D foods public relations dep would do if faced with a report hostile to its products is not known and is irrelevant. Whether they played a role in case of O food products is also not known. All we know is that there is a bias, a conflict of interest in this case since O and D are rivals and hence the report may be biased.

Answer (A)

GmatDestroyer2013 · Answer

Hi,

Can some one please explain me above argument and why the option D is correct.

I marked E for the following reasons:
Cause (Danto Food being the Ocksenfrey’s largest corporate rival) and Effect (Ocksenfrey prepackaged meals are virtually devoid of nutritional value)

Please explain the reasoning I am not able to make out any sense.

Nightmare007 · Answer

in this flaw in the reasoning type of question. the flaw indicated is STRAW MAN type only A answers that type. So answer is A.

Sent from my ONE A2003 using  GMAT Club Forum mobile app

abrakadabra21 · Answer

(E) presumes, without providing justification, that Danto Foods’ public relations department would not approve a draft of a report that was hostile to Danto Foods’ products

why E is wrong?

1> O Product nutritious => would not approve by DF PR 
2> O Product NOT nutritious => Report approved by DF PR. (In this case O product are actually not nutritious.)

If O Product nutritious, in that case the report would not have been approved by DF PR in the 1st place. This is not the case the report has been approved so then O product has to be nutritious. that's what E says. 
but here the situation is different:

O product NOT nutritious => report by DF PR and now we have to prove that O product is actually nutritious.

somebody approve my thinking, seems lost here

SoulSurfer · Answer

i am stuck between A and C.

i went for C because both Danto's and Ocksenfrey's are rivals and even if the the reports are correct, Ocksenfrey's officials may try to prove the reports false citing Danto' s are their corporate rivals and they want to malign the image of ocksenfrey's products. 
So this one weakens the conclusion as per me.

Please guide me if i am going wrong.

and i could not understand option A at all.

mikemcgarry · Answer

Dear aamir89 , I'm happy to respond.

I discuss why (A) is correct in my post of May 15, 2014. You say, " i could not understand option A at all " but you understood enough to gather that it was a possible answer. What do you understand about it and what don't you understand? Here's choice (C): (C) fails to take into account the possibility that Ocksenfrey has just as much motivation to create negative publicity for Danto as Danto has to create negative publicity for Ocksenfrey This is irrelevant. It may be that, were Ocksenfrey to publish its own report, it would be the most biased and self-serving thing possible. Or, it may be that they are as fair and even-handed as possible. We don't know. But whether they would be fair or biased is irrelevant, since in fact, they have published nothing, at least so far as we know, and we are trying to evaluate only the worth of the Connorly Report reviwed by Danto. Does all this make sense? Mike

SoulSurfer · Answer

thank you so much Mike. i understood where i went wrong. We have only the report of Coonorly Report Review in hand and our thinking should follow the evidence.

Adi93 · Answer

Though I selected A, I am unable to eliminate E completely.

GMATNinja   abhimahna

Can you please help me in giving out the reasons for eliminating E.

abhimahna · Answer

Hey  Adi93  ,

The keyword to reject choice E is "Hostile"

(E) presumes, without providing justification, that Danto Foods’ public relations department would not approve a draft of a report that was hostile to Danto Foods’ products

How do you know it was hostile to Danto Foods’ products.

Remember - We need to find out a flaw in the reasoning. We need to criticize the conclusion. Having said that, if you say the reports were really what they never wanted, the conclusion is somewhat strengthened. But our aim is not that.

There could be a possibility that reports were already too bad that Danto Foods didn't do anything. Hence, E is out.

Does that make sense?

adkikani · Answer

generis   GMATNinja   GMATNinja 2  KarishmaB   nightblade354

I did not think on lines similar to reasoning presented by  mikemcgarry  and discarded (E) , one of most popular incorrect choice based on one word in (E): approve. Do I care whether or not the competitor approves the Connorly Report? No.

Main conclusion: Ocksenfrey’s prepackaged meals really are nutritious.

Why: Let us say  Pepsi and Coca-Cola are two die-hard competitors of one another  and a report says Pepsi
drinks are not nutritious. But the drafts of the report are approved by a competitor - Coco Cola . the consumer 
will always be biased with the results of reports since he is aware of underlined portion.

But the jump from saying that reports are not trustworthy since they are approved by a competitor is bit valid than saying Pepsi's products are nutritious. I see a huge scope shift here.

The results are already out and published, why would motive or approval matter?

Let's be on task to weaken the argument.

I am bit confused about occurrence of two many times evidence in this choice, but I was sure to eliminate others.

Out because of the irrelevance of underlined portion

As I explained earlier, the motive of competitor e.g. Coca-Cola in my eg is irrelevant to the argument.

Are not we discussing about the nutritional value of Ocksenfrey’s products and not Danto Foods' meals??

nightblade354 · Answer

adkikani ,

Consumer: The latest Connorly Report suggests that Ocksenfrey prepackaged meals are virtually devoid of nutritional value. But the Connorly Report is commissioned by Danto Foods, Ocksenfrey’s largest corporate rival, and early drafts of the report are submitted for approval to Danto Foods’ public relations department. Because of the obvious bias of this report, it is clear that Ocksenfrey’s prepackaged meals really are nutritious.

Background is in  blue 
Counter premise is in  pink 
Premise is in light  blue 
Conclusion is in  green

Let's diagram:

Company A publishes negative report about competitor B -- competitor B says it is wrong -- therefore it must be the complete opposite because of the bias between the companies  -- the issue here is the complete reversal in the argument. X is wrong, so the opposite is correct. This is our error.

The reasoning in the consumer’s argument is most vulnerable to criticism on the grounds that the argument

(A) treats evidence that there is an apparent bias as evidence that the Connorly Report’s claims are false --  This says word for word what we just diagramed. Winner!
 
(E) presumes, without providing justification, that Danto Foods’ public relations department would not approve a draft of a report that was hostile to Danto Foods’ products --  We do not care about Danto foods' products. What if they published a good report? Can we assume it would damage their products because they published a positive report about the competitor? Nope. This is the issue.

-- Does this help?

Priyadarshana · Answer

Hi,

Could option E be correct if it were 'presumes, without providing justification, that Danto Foods’ public relations department would not approve a draft of a report that was submitted by Ocksenfrey'.

I was inclined towards this option because it has the word 'presumes' and that is what the argument is doing.

hiranmay · Answer

Consumer: The latest Connorly Report suggests that Ocksenfrey prepackaged meals are virtually devoid of nutritional value. But the Connorly Report is commissioned by Danto Foods, Ocksenfrey’s largest corporate rival, and early drafts of the report are submitted for approval to Danto Foods’ public relations department. Because of the obvious bias of this report, it is clear that Ocksenfrey’s prepackaged meals really are nutritious.

The reasoning in the consumer’s argument is most vulnerable to criticism on the grounds that the argument

Analysis:
O: Ocksenfrey
D: Danto
Report suggests that O's meal is not nutritious
But D, competitor of O, was involved in the reporting, so it's bias
conclusion: if evidence is biased, then O's meal is nutrients.
But it's not logical, if the evidence is biased, the still the O's meal can be devoid of nutrients, so we can't conclude that O's meal is nutritious, since evidence is biased.

(A) treats evidence that there is an apparent bias as evidence that the Connorly Report’s claims are false -->  correct : matches w/ the analysis

(B) draws a conclusion based solely on an unrepresentative sample of Ocksenfrey’s products --> sample is not the point of discussion

(C) fails to take into account the possibility that Ocksenfrey has just as much motivation to create negative publicity for Danto as Danto has to create negative publicity for Ocksenfrey --> D can spread -ve, but discussion has happened for the reverse

(D) fails to provide evidence that Danto Foods’ prepackaged meals are not more nutritious than Ocksenfrey’s are --> no comparison has been done between O's food & D's

(E) presumes, without providing justification, that Danto Foods’ public relations department would not approve a draft of a report that was hostile to Danto Foods’ products --> it's biased, but it's not correct to assume that all the draft will n't be approved by D

ravigupta2912 · Answer

My head is just spinning between if the logical negation of "not nutritious" is "not not nutritious" rather than "nutritious" (which has a +ve bias to it) whereas the former just eliminates the -ve bias.

Because if i assume the former (not not nutritious), then A is completely irrelevant to the argument.

Help please though I need I just probably need to be shaked!

VerbalBot · Answer

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Consumer: The latest Connorly Report suggests that Ocksenfre

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