Mel: The official salary for judges has always been too low

to attract the best candidates to the job - so we(well, Mel, but it is good to be sympathetic to the argument) are looking for what is favored by potential candidates and do not care about what current members do.

And Pat simply talks about current judges.

So, reading through choices was a breeze and I immediately chose A.

But I admit this problem is bit tricky. I tutor GMAT and two of my brighter students who recently tried this problem got it wrong. So, let me illustrate a fail-safe elimination based approach if one missed this critical fact during the first reading that the argument is about future candidates. Let's say we are simply looking for why raise in salary cant compensate ban on teaching although few judges teach.

A. the word 'potential' should make us think that we missed something. Good if you see connection. But if you don't, at least the second half of choice is spot on ie. Pat does provide evidence about effect on current members. So, don't eliminate even if your eyes don't light up

B, D - clearly wrong.

C - tempting choice..come back to it.
E - doesn't have much to say. increase in salary benefits all members and nothing being said about 'most able' members - so kinda illogical.

Reviewing choices C and A, Pat does admit to negative effects and does not deny them. So, C is wrong.

But, to be sure of the answer, at least at this stage of carefully re-reading the choice and perhaps glancing at the argument again, the word 'potential' should click.

Mel: The official salary for judges has always been too low to attract the best
Candidates to the job. The legislature’s move to raise the salary has
done nothing to improve the situation, because it was coupled with
a ban on receiving money for lectures and teaching engagements.

Pat: No, the raise in salary really does improve the situation. Since very few
judges teach or give lectures, the ban will have little or no negative
effect.

Pat’s response to Mel is inadequate in that it

A. attempts to assess how a certain change will affect potential members
of a group by providing evidence about its effect on the current members.CORRECT. Usage of WILL in the last sentence
B. mistakenly takes the cause of a certain change to be an effect of that changeINCORRECT
C. attempts to argue that a certain change will have a positive effect merely
by pointing to the absence of negative effectsPat says that the ban will have little OR no negative effectsTherefore, he does not entirely rule out the effects (negative or other). Just points to the gravity of the effects
D. simply denies Mel’s claim without putting forward any evidence in support
of that denialINCORRECT
E. assumes that changes that benefit the most able members of a group
necessarily benefit all members of that group.There is no connection between delivering lectures and ability of the judges

I initially picked C. But OA given is A and hence I formulated the above reasoning

[quote="JCLEONES"]Mel: The official salary for judges has always been too low to attract the best
Candidates to the job. The legislature’s move to raise the salary has done nothing to improve the situation, because it was coupled with a ban on receiving money for lectures and teaching engagements.

Pat: No, the raise in salary really does improve the situation. Since very few
judges teach or give lectures, the ban will have little or no negative
effect.

Pat’s response to Mel is inadequate in that it

A. attempts to assess how a certain change will affect potential members
of a group by providing evidence about its effect on the current members.
I think it's the best choice since the evaluation from Pat take into account only the current members. maybe the change will affect potential members. Is it OA?

B. mistakenly takes the cause of a certain change to be an effect of that change
I have some doubts regarding this choice but I actually don't see cause-effect relationship in the Pat's thought
C. attempts to argue that a certain change will have a positive effect merely
by pointing to the absence of negative effects

the absence of negative effects is the core of the argument
D. simply denies Mel’s claim without putting forward any evidence in support
of that denial

that's falseE. assumes that changes that benefit the most able members of a group
necessarily benefit all members of that group. false

Mel: The official salary for judges has always been too low to attract the best
Candidates to the job. The legislature’s move to raise the salary has
done nothing to improve the situation, because it was coupled with
a ban on receiving money for lectures and teaching engagements.

Pat: No, the raise in salary really does improve the situation. Since very few
judges teach or give lectures, the ban will have little or no negative
effect.

Pat’s response to Mel is inadequate in that it

A. attempts to assess how a certain change will affect potential members
of a group by providing evidence about its effect on the current members.
B. mistakenly takes the cause of a certain change to be an effect of that change
C. attempts to argue that a certain change will have a positive effect merely
by pointing to the absence of negative effects
D. simply denies Mel’s claim without putting forward any evidence in support
of that denial
E. assumes that changes that benefit the most able members of a group
necessarily benefit all members of that group.

Would go with A.... as the same is best option. Pat does give his analysis on checking the current members of the group being discussed. He doesn't take into account the future aspect of it... What if more judges begin to teach!!!

E was a close contender but the wording talks about most able members.... this implies that judges who do not teach are most able and hence this is incorrect.

Hence A should be correct...

Hi GraceSCKao, I think this problem deals with a form of survivorship bias. In this case, "surviving" means working as a judge, and "not surviving" in this context means those "best candidates" whom the official salary was too low to attract.
When a CR problem deals with a course of action that is designed to accomplish some aim, it's very important to think deeply about the aim and be as specific as possible about what exactly that aim is. Attention to detail is critical here.
In this case, the aim is to attract the best candidates, so the implication is that those best candidates do not presently work as judges.

Correct. Response 1 suffers from survivorship bias, whereas response 2 does not.

Mel: The official salary for judges has always been too low to attract the best Candidates to the job. The legislature’s move to raise the salary has done nothing to improve the situation, because it was coupled with a ban on receiving money for lectures and teaching engagements.

Pat: No, the raise in salary really does improve the situation. Since very few judges teach or give lectures, the ban will have little or no negative effect.

Pat’s response to Mel is inadequate in that it

A. attempts to assess how a certain change will affect potential members of a group by providing evidence about its effect on the current members.
B. mistakenly takes the cause of a certain change to be an effect of that change
C. attempts to argue that a certain change will have a positive effect merely by pointing to the absence of negative effects
D. simply denies Mel’s claim without putting forward any evidence in support of that denial
E. assumes that changes that benefit the most able members of a group necessarily benefit all members of that group.



I did it by process of elimination
My answer is A

Why not B?
The cause and effect relationship in his statement is completely sound.

Why not C?
He did'nt straight away said that there will no negative effect (absence of negative effects), instead he points of towards the possibility that there may be "little or no negative effect". (if little was not there then this was a good option)

Why not D?
He did give evidence that very few judges are involved in teaching and lectures.

Why not E?
This is completely irrelevant, no where stated.


I am not sure about why A should be right
Can anyone help?

And if you liked my explanations kudos please

Both Mel and Pat would agree that raising the salary would be a good thing if there were no ban. The disagreement is over whether raising the salary would STILL be a good thing IF it is coupled with a ban.

Even Mel fails to address other possible negative effects of raising the salary and implementing the ban. Mel implies that raising the salary WOULD have a positive effect if it weren't for the ban. Pat does not need to argue that there are NO negative effects (i.e. an "absence of negative effects"). Instead, Pat just needs to address the SINGLE negative effect described by Mel.

If Pat had said, "No, raising the salary and implementing the ban will improve the situation because doing so has no negative effects", then choice (C) would be more accurate. Instead, Pat specifically addresses the potential negative effect described by Mel. How does Pat do this? Pat attempts to assess how the salary increase and ban will affect potential judges by providing evidence about the effect on current judges.

This is exactly what choice (A) says, so (A) is a better answer.

A slight rephrase to C1: "Attempts to argue that a certain change will have a positive effect merely by pointing out that there would be few negative effects."

I still would not have selected it, because the major flaw (which A addresses) is still there--any discussion about 'how often judges lecture/teach' pertains to only the *current* judges where we're trying to recruit new, better qualified ones.

I think C1 would be a *more* tolerable answer (absent A) because Pat's argument is basically 'the good thing will still happen because the effects of the bad thing are minimal.' But we still don't *really* know whether the good thing will happen. Even if the more qualified candidates ALSO wouldn't lecture/teach often, we're not sure this new bill would improve the situation.

Of course, if the more qualified candidates would like to lecture/teach often--as might be the case--the new bill has a pretty glaring flaw, which is why A is the best answer by far.

I don't think the GMAT would make you *choose* between A and C1, though. If they did, A is still the better answer. But it's pretty textbook GMAT trap-answer to give a right answer, and a very tempting wrong answer, and the reason the very tempting wrong answer is so tempting is that it can be easily misinterpreted to be a better 'version' of that answer (that still is a worse answer than the actual right answer).

A good way to get rid of that very tempting right answer C is to not misinterpret it into C1. But even if you do? A is still the better answer.

Here's the thing--neither C nor C1 is *actually* what Pat's argument is. C and C1 both are what Pat is *trying* to do. But he fails at doing so because of the flaws in A. What Pat is actually doing is 'Arguing for positive effects by pointing out the lack of negative effects [but doing so for a group of people that we're actually not interested in].'

If Pat had said "Qualified candidates for judges are not interested in teaching and lecturing for money," that would be 'arguing for positive effects by pointing out the lack of negative effects.'

(We might be mostly in agreement, and just dancing around some nuance here).

Even I chose the wrong answer initially. After going through the forum feel A is better choice. Here is my view on A.

Mel: The official salary for judges has always been too low to attract the best
Candidates to the job. - This line states that Currently Judges are involved in some other profession rather to be as judges since the pay scale is less The legislature’s move to raise the salary has done nothing to improve the situation, because it was coupled with a ban on receiving money for lectures and teaching engagements.This line states that the more eligible candidate to be judges has chosen the profession as Teaching.

Pat: No, the raise in salary really does improve the situation. Since very few
judges teach or give lectures, the ban will have little or no negative
effect. -- Pat is stating that "Since very few judges" --> he is talking about currently who ever is performing the role of a judge. But Mel statement is based on the candidate who are currently involved in teaching profession

Pat’s response to Mel is inadequate in that it

A. attempts to assess how a certain change will affect potential members
of a group by providing evidence about its effect on the current members. --> Based on above desc, A fits in to it perfectly
B. mistakenly takes the cause of a certain change to be an effect of that change
C. attempts to argue that a certain change will have a positive effect merely
by pointing to the absence of negative effects
D. simply denies Mel’s claim without putting forward any evidence in support
of that denial
E. assumes that changes that benefit the most able members of a group
necessarily benefit all members of that group.

Mel: The official salary for judges has always been too low to attract the best Candidates to the job. The legislature’s move to raise the salary has done nothing to improve the situation, because it was coupled with a ban on receiving money for lectures and teaching engagements.

Pat: No, the raise in salary really does improve the situation. Since very few judges teach or give lectures, the ban will have little or no negative effect.

Pat’s response to Mel is inadequate in that it

A. attempts to assess how a certain change will affect potential members of a group by providing evidence about its effect on the current members.
B. mistakenly takes the cause of a certain change to be an effect of that change
C. attempts to argue that a certain change will have a positive effect merely by pointing to the absence of negative effects
D. simply denies Mel’s claim without putting forward any evidence in support of that denial
E. assumes that changes that benefit the most able members of a group necessarily benefit all members of that group.

In order to answer such Questions look for the unstated assumption.

M : Premise 1 : salary not enough.
Premise 2 : salary increased but judges not allowed to earn from teaching assignments.
Conclusion : Income still not enough
Assumption : because earlier there were no restrictions on earning from teaching assignments but now there is

Example : Earlier avg judge salary 100k
teaching assignments etc : avg pay : 20k
avg total income : 120k

Now judges avg salary : 110k
other income from teaching assignments etc : 0
Total avg= 110k

P : Premise : Most judges currently dont take extra teaching assignments/lectures. So little -ve effect or no -ve effect
Conclusion : salary enough after increase
Assumption : No option in the future to earn more from teaching assignments (even required by the judges). Current solution not considering the future judges and their potential need to earn more


A. attempts to assess how a certain change will affect potential members of a group by providing evidence about its effect on the current members.
potential members and current members, what the differnce ? P talks about most current judges (Not good enough(
B. mistakenly takes the cause of a certain change to be an effect of that change
Not relevant
C. attempts to argue that a certain change will have a positive effect merely by pointing to the absence of negative effects
But pat does point out the -ve effects, he just says that little or no impact due to it
D. simply denies Mel’s claim without putting forward any evidence in support of that denial
P does put evidence forth "most judges dont take lectures"
E. assumes that changes that benefit the most able members of a group necessarily benefit all members of that group.
Bingo!! exactly our assumption, hence our answer

BTW i got it wrong in my test, but only cuz i was running out time. I doubt this is 700 level Q

Option C is wrong because it says PAT is saying there will be no Negative effect(See here: by pointing to the absence of negative effects).

But actually Pat said there may be little negative effect. So, we cannot ignore this little effect and say no negative effect.

Option A is right because It says PAT is giving assurance about future based on current situations. It may happen that in future there are many judges who start receiving money for lectures and teaching engagements. Hence, we can not say, this ban "will" have little or no negative effect.

I hope that makes sense.

Me too. Agreed.I disagree, GraceSCKao. I suspect that you're not making as big a deal as I am of the word "merely."
Pat doesn't have to go that far. It's enough that Pat acknowledges a positive effect to make answer choice (C) unfair toward Pat. There's no need for the positive effect to outweigh the negative effect.

Sure, here's an argument in which the criticism in answer choice (C) would be a fair criticism:
Mel: Attempting to use this microwave to heat up my cold lunch won't improve the situation, since we have a power outage.
Pat: No, using this microwave really will improve the situation, since even a powerless microwave won't make your lunch any colder.

No, GraceSCKao, this doesn't really make any difference - I would still eliminate it for the same reason.
Here's how I'm thinking about it: we have a raise coupled with a ban. It seems that everyone is in agreement that if it were just the raise (without a ban) the situation would be improved. The argument is about whether the ban itself will counteract the positive impact of the raise. Pat is arguing that the ban will have little or no negative effect, but Pat is NOT arguing that the ban, in and of itself, will have a positive effect.
In other words, there are two separate changes being proposed here, and Pat is arguing that little or no negative effects in one of the changes means that the other change won't be counteracted.
Remember, the question asked us for a reason why Pat's response is inadequate. If it's true that the ban will have little or no negative effects, then it follows that the ban won't counter the positive effects of the raise, and therefore Pat's response IS adequate, from that perspective.

As to why the answer is NOT C: Pat doesn't say that there is positive effect (there is little or no negative effect)

the new legislature move proposes increasing the salary of judges(positive move) and also banning them from receiving money from lectures/teachings(negative move).

Pat believes their since their are very few judges existing judges who give lectures,the effect of -ve move is almost neglible.
this reasoning is flawed because it is taking into account only the existing group and not the prospective judges.
option A addresses this point

while option C says that Pat's reasoning is flawed because he "attempts to argue that a certain change will have a positive effect merely
by pointing to the absence of negative effects"
"C" ASSUMES that Pat is right when he talks about "absence of negative effects",when it is clear that new rule DOES have negative effects(ie new rule isnt taking into consideration the potential members,who might have problem with 2nd part of new rule,which discourages them from joining the profession).

Looking at options A and C
Though i agree withexplanation given by d3thknell that C" ASSUMES that Pat is right when he talks about "absence of negative effects",when it is clear that new rule DOES have negative effects(ie new rule isnt taking into consideration the potential members,who might have problem with 2nd part of new rule,which discourages them from joining the profession).
But I dont completely agree with Choice A too.. choice "A" mentions "By Providing Evidence"..But there is no evidence mentioned. Can someone please clarify?

Can someone clarify for me too, why option C is incorrect? All explanations in favor of option A or against option C I read before don't seem convincing enough. The source of this question is GmatPrep Exam Pack 1, so it is crucial for me to understand testmaker's logic here.