Historical data for all the elections held in Gangnam City shows that

I completely agree that it should be option B, not C. Option C makes two assumptions, not supported by the passage:

First assumption is that only A, B and C are contesting the election.

Second assumption is that the history is a perfect indicator of the future. In other words, if something has not happened in the past, it will never happen in the future also. I say this assumption is made because C is entirely left out of contention for a winner, which, in other words, means that C cannot win. Using past data, we can say that C is less likely to win but we cannot say that "C cannot win".

Given that both of these assumptions are not supported by the passage, correct option should be B.

Cheers,
CJ

It is B indeed, simply because the final result could even be a tie between A and B but going by past trends C will most likely lose.

I took C and my reasoning for it was that the stem seems to suggest very strongly that someone who does not canvass for 100 hours will win (notice how it speaks in absolutes, such as "ALL winning candidates have canvassed for at least 100 hours"; "...canvassed for fewer than 100 hours have NEVER EVER won". Therefore, in my opinion, the author is very strongly implying that unless you canvass for 100 hours, you won't win and out of all of the candidates, only A and B have canvassed for 100+ hours, therefore ONLY they have a shot at winning. The fact that there are other candidates involved is irrelevant because they are the only ones who have canvassed for 100 hours, so they are the only ones that will win. B doesn't take a strong enough stand based on the author's language, so IMO, it loses to C. The fact that the stem makes us assume the statements as true (i.e. that unless you have 100 hours, you WILL lose), there is simply no chance in hell that candidate C will lose, so "most likely" doesn't cut it. If B said, "Candidate C will lose" then it would be correct.

You should notice that the argument does not say ONLY A & B. Also the fact that C takes too strong a stand is what makes it wrong when compared with B. " candidate C will lose" would also be incorrect. In finding conclusion more often than not it is a safer pick to choose the milder statement. The author only says that candidates who have canvassed for less than 100 hours have never won. He does not say that such a candidate can never win. The author does not imply that unless you canvass for 100 hours you wont win. Rather he only says that if you do not canvass for 100 hours, the chances for you to win are lesser than your chances if you had canvassed for 100 hours. And on a general note, to repeat myself, in finding conclusion, more often than not it is better to go with the mildest statement.

Kudos Please... If my post helped.

Correcting the OA. thanks for the replies!

Can someone explain why option 'E' is incorrect!

Are we given that the candidate with the highest number of hours canvassed will win?

CJ

yes correct.. "candidate with the highest number of hours canvassed will win" is not stated by the Stimulus..
thanks chiranjeev12

+1 for you

But if C has contested for less than 100 hours , he will sure shot lose the election, there should not be most likely to this. Adding most likely means he has a higher chance of losing and a very low chance of winning, which is incorrect as per statistics.

Official Explanation

Answer: B

Since this is an Inference question, let’s look at each option and eliminate.

(A) The argument never states that the candidate who canvasses for the maximum number of hours wins the election. The argument only states that the winning candidates always canvass for more than 100 hours, so A could also win the election.

(B) The correct answer. This has to be true based on the information in the stimulus. Candidate C has canvassed for fewer than 100 hours and no one with such a track record has ever won the election, so it can be safely concluded that C will most likely lose the election. Note that most likely does not mean definitely.

(C) The argument never states that A, B and C are the only candidates standing for the election; there could be other candidates as well who could have canvassed for more than 100 hours.

(D) This can be a logical opinion but cannot be inferred from the information in the stimulus.

(E) Again the stimulus never states that the candidate who canvasses for the maximum number of hours will win the election, so this inference need not be true.

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