Intern
Joined: 30 Sep 2015
Posts: 47
Location: United States (MD)
Concentration: Marketing, Entrepreneurship
GMAT 1: 620 Q49 V27
WE:Marketing (Consumer Products)
OG 2016-CR-Q109: each volunteer was allowed to choose between an easy
[#permalink]
02 May 2016, 07:42
In an experiment, each volunteer was allowed to choose between an easy task and a hard task and was told that another volunteer would do the other task. Each volunteer could also choose to have a computer assign the two tasks randomly. Most volunteers chose the easy task for themselves and under questioning later said they had acted fairly. But when the scenario was described to another group of volunteers, almost all said choosing the easy task would be unfair. This shows that most people apply weaker moral standards to themselves than to others.
Which of the following is an assumption required by this argument?
A) At least some volunteers who said they had acted fairly in choosing the easy task would have said that it was unfair for someone else to do so.
B) The most moral choice for the volunteers would have been to have the computer assign the two tasks randomly.
C) There were at least some volunteers who were assigned to do the hard task and felt that the assignment was unfair.
D) On average, the volunteers to whom the scenario was described were more accurate in their moral judgments than the other volunteers were.
E) At least some volunteers given the choice between assigning the tasks themselves and having the computer assign them felt that they had made the only fair choice available to them.
Hi Experts!
I have a querie related to this exercise.
1st: Is my analysis of option E the reason why it is incorrect?
Analysis:
Logical structure
i) Each volunteer can choose between an easy task and a hard task and was told that another volunteer would do the other task.
ii) Each volunteer could also choose to have a computer assign the two tasks randomly.
iii) Most volunteers chose the easy task for themselves → they say acted fairly.
iv) BUT, almost all volunteers from another group said that choosing the easy task = unfair.
I, ii, iii & iv) Conclusion: Most people apply weaker moral standards to themselves than to others.
Question esteem: Assumption (No causality) Find a gap required for the conclusion to be true.
Pre-thinking
• Weak moral standards is related to judge as fair when choosing easy tasks for oneself, but when judging other’s choice of easy tasks, the same people believe the others act unfairly, so they apply stronger moral standards to others’ decisions.
Answer choice analysis
A) Correct Assumption!. It is similar to my pre-thinking. The negated statement (None of the volunteers who said they had acted fairly in choosing the easy task would have said that it was unfair for someone else to do so) takes the conclusion apart, because it means that they are not applying weaker moral standards to themselves than to others.
B) OFS. We can’t assume which would have been the most moral choice for the volunteers. The argument is not about choosing the best decision, but it is about analyzing how people judge their decision and other’s decisions in similar situations.
C) iSWAT. We don’t know if these volunteers assigned to do the hard task, had acknowledge of other’s choice of easy task. Thus, this group is and isolated different group and not from the research.
D) OFS. We can’t assume who is more accurate in their moral judgment. The argument doesn’t talk about anything how to determine accuracy in moral judgment.
E) OFS. The negated statement (None of the volunteers given the choice between assigning the tasks themselves and having the computer assign them felt that they had made the only fair choice available to them) doesn’t break the conclusion apart because it means that there are other fair choices available. Perhaps one of the researchers could have chosen the task for the volunteers too, aside from the computer. The argument is related to how volunteers judge their choice of a task and how the same people judge other’s choice of a task.
Please help.
Thanks a lot!
Rumi