Consumer advocate: Weekend morning and weekday afternoon

Ditto

[quote="GMATT73"]Consumer advocate: Weekend morning and weekday afternoon television advertisements universally tout foods with little or no nutritional value. Children and young teens are the primary television viewers during these periods and as a result are influenced to follow poor nutritional habits, which have been a major factor in the country's obesity problem.

Which of the following, if true, calls into question the logical validity of the argument above?


(A) Children are more influenced in their eating habits by their primary caregivers than they are by advertisements on television or in print.
(B) Food and beverage advertising during prime-time is generally targeted at adult audiences and also primarly advertise unhealthy foods.
(C) Children`s desires for particular foods or beverages are strongly influenced by what they see or hear on television.
(D) Television advertises more products that have dubious or no nutritional value than it does those that do.
(E) Advertisers generally advertise products that market studies show the target audience currently favors.[/quote

OA please.. A does not say that television doesnot influence .It just says that caregivers influence more than telelvision. But it doesnot disqualify the influence of television.

E can also be a contender .It reverses the cause. IT says that A doesnot ahppen becuse of b. On the other hand B occurs becuse of A.

I would go with A.

Conclusion: children/young teens watch the commercials and that is why they have poor nutrition habits.

We need to prove this wrong and A does just that. If someone else in the house makes the decision about the food, but don't watch the commercials during that time, it would prove the conclusion false.

I choose E.

Conclusion says that advertisement influences children into doing something - advertisement is the cause and children choosing bad food is the result.

E reverses this logic. It says advertisers advertise what children already like. This means that children already are eating bad food and therefore there is no question of advertisemtns influencing children's decisions.

I vote for A.

One more 'A'

E.

A says that children are more influenzed. So what more or less, they get influenzed.

It's b/tw A & E
I choose A
B-out of scope
C & D-support argument

What is OA?

MATT, can you please post the OA?

Giving it a second-thought, I switch over to (E).

MATT what is the OA ?

Sorry for flaking out on the OA guys! Here you go...

OA is E:

OE:

Step 1: ID Question Type and Task
Something that calls into question the logic of the argument will weaken the argument. This is a weaken question.
The task on a weaken question is to find the assumptions in order to attack them.

Step 2: Read the Argument and Extract Necessary Information:
By claiming that the advertisements are the cause for the poor nutritional habits which is the cause of the obesity, the argument should be identified as one of the most common GMAT argument types, the causal argument.
The assumption, as with most causal arguments, is that there is no other possible cause for the poor nutritional habits (and thus the obesity) other than the tv ads.

Step 3: Formulate an Answer to the Question:
To weaken this argument attack the assumption by introducing other possible causes or disprove the indicated cause.

Step 4: Eliminate Answer Choices:
(A) Keep. This choice suggests another possible influence on eating habits.

(B) Irrelevant. This does not attack the assumptions, which are about the causes of poor habits in children.

(C) Strengthens. This supports the assumption that tv ads causes poor habits.

(D) Irrelevant. The fact that more bad are advertised then good does not attack the assumptions about the causes of poor eating habits.

(E) Keep. This introduces that the cause and effect could have been reversed, which would directly attack the assumption.

Step 5: Compare the Remaining Choices:
Choice (A) upon closer examination says that children are more influenced by primary caregivers than by advertisements, which implies that they are influenced by advertisement. (E) however lacks any ambiguity.