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Bunuel
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DataCom, a company that filed many patents last year, was financially 17 Feb 2020, 03:06
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D
Be sure to select an answer first to save it in the Error Log before revealing the correct answer (OA)!

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35% (medium)

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70% (01:34) correct 30% (01:33) wrong based on 786 sessions

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DataCom, a company that filed many patents last year, was financially more successful last year than were its competitors, none of which filed many patents. It is therefore likely that DataCom owed its greater financial success to the fact that it filed many patents last year.

The argument is most vulnerable to criticism on the grounds that it

(A) presupposes what it sets out to demonstrate about the relationship between the financial success of DataCom’s competitors and the number of patents they filed

(B) confused a company’s financial success with its technological innovativeness

(C) fails to establish whether any one of DataCom’s competitors was financially more successful last year than was any other

(D) gives no reason to exclude the possibility that other differences between DataCom and its competitors accounted for its comparative financial success

(E) applies a generalization to an exceptional case
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D
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DataCom, a company that filed many patents last year, was financially 17 Feb 2020, 04:22
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D is the right answer.
There might be some reason other than filing more patents, that contributed to company's success.

Posted from my mobile device
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DataCom, a company that filed many patents last year, was financially 11 Mar 2020, 01:35
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Why is A not correct? Is not A a good contender to D.
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DataCom, a company that filed many patents last year, was financially 12 Mar 2020, 09:06
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sony1000
Why is A not correct? Is not A a good contender to D.
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I fell for A too at first.
Im no expert but i try to explain my thoughts.

The argument sets out to suggest that there is a correlation between number of patents files and financial success.
But it never directly presupposes/assumes that in order to make the suggestion. The argument just mentions the lower number of patents filed as a plain fact.
A sounds so good, but actually is not true.
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DataCom, a company that filed many patents last year, was financially 30 Jun 2020, 22:45
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DataCom, a company that filed many patents last year, was financially more successful last year than were its competitors, none of which filed many patents. It is therefore likely that DataCom owed its greater financial success to the fact that it filed many patents last year.

The argument is most vulnerable to criticism on the grounds that it

The highlighted portion above is conclusion.

(A) presupposes what it sets out to demonstrate about the relationship between the financial success of DataCom’s competitors and the number of patents they filed --> It does not presuppose that, but a relation between patents and Financial success in general.

(B) confused a company’s financial success with its technological innovativeness --> This is little tricky, but if you pay attention you will find that it is not confusing financial success and technological innovativeness(Patent), but cause and effect.

(C) fails to establish whether any one of DataCom’s competitors was financially more successful last year than was any other --> Irrelevant

(D) gives no reason to exclude the possibility that other differences between DataCom and its competitors accounted for its comparative financial success --> It presupposes that more patent lets to greater financial success, but there could be numerous other reasons.

(E) applies a generalization to an exceptional case --> Out of scope, as it is not stated that it is an exceptional case
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DataCom, a company that filed many patents last year, was financially 05 Jul 2023, 06:00
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I will go with D.
The question stem basically argues that since Datacom filed more patents,it emerged more successful than any other.
Now,to weaken this,we need an option that suggests patent was not ONLY responsible for the success.

A is a good choice but since we need to compare its success with other companies (as given in stem),we cannot choose this.
B is irrelevant as technology is not talked about.
C again is irrelevant because last year data is of no use here.
D is exactly we needed as discussed above(in the starting)
E is absolutely out of scope.

Hope it helped:)
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DataCom, a company that filed many patents last year, was financially 30 Jul 2023, 09:21
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DataCom, a company that filed many patents last year, was financially more successful last year than were its competitors, none of which filed many patents. It is therefore likely that DataCom owed its greater financial success to the fact that it filed many patents last year.

The argument is most vulnerable to criticism on the grounds that it

(A) presupposes what it sets out to demonstrate about the relationship between the financial success of DataCom’s competitors and the number of patents they filed - WRONG. There is no specific number mentioned.

(B) confused a company’s financial success with its technological innovativeness - WRONG. Not confusion since its a clear claim made.

(C) fails to establish whether any one of DataCom’s competitors was financially more successful last year than was any other - WRONG. Not in the scope of conclusion.

(D) gives no reason to exclude the possibility that other differences between DataCom and its competitors accounted for its comparative financial success - CORRECT. Why only patents mattered here? There can be other possibilities.

(E) applies a generalization to an exceptional case - WRONG. No generalization no exceptional case.

Answer D.
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