Each of the academic journals Thought and Ergo has a review

B can only be a good inference.
As per B,it only says that there are at least some misattributed quotations in articles submitted to Ergo for publication
How many we dont know.
It is quite possible that number of articles submitted are more to thought than are to Ergo.
Its a case of percentage vs absolute numbers.

Can someone help me understand how B is an assumption

Hi Rahul!

Choice (E) implies that there was way less # of misattributed quotes sent to be corrected at Ergo’s review committee (because the authors who submit articles to E’s check their articles precisely before submitting their articles) than T’s # of misattributed quotes sent to the T’s review committee.

That means; even though T’s review committee works effectively, T’s review committee makes some mistakes, publishing articles with misattributed articles.

For example, you and yours friend have to decorate cookies with a small chocolate on top of it, one per a cookie.
You are allocated with 100 cookies, your friend is allocated with 10 cookies. You and your friend must finish decorating cookies in one hour.
Now, who has higher percentage to make mistakes? You. Right?

Therefore, (E) is talking about different cause; it’s not because T’s committee being ineffective, it’s because they have too many work to correct.

Thus we can tell (E) itself weakens the conclusion of the passage: E’s committee is effective, T’s committee isn’t.

Posted from my mobile device

Each of the academic journals Thought and Ergo has a review committee to prevent misattributed quotations from appearing in its published articles. Nevertheless, about ten percent of the quotations in Thought's published articles are misattributed, whereas Ergo contains no misattributions. Ergo's committee is more effective, therefore, than Thought's at finding misattributed quotations.

I can explain it like :

The conclusion says that the "Ergo's committee is more effective, therefore, than Thought's " ..
So on what basis .. If no attribution comes to the review committee for the edit , then there is no way that conclusion can be made .. So we have to assume that at least some misattributed quotations in articles sent to the committee for review

The argument above assumes that

(A) most of the articles submitted to Thought for publication contain misattributed quotations

(B) there are at least some misattributed quotations in articles submitted to Ergo for publication

(C) the members of Ergo's committee are, on the whole, more knowledgeable than are the members of Thought's committee

(D) the number of misattributed quotations in a journal is an accurate measure of how carefully that journal is edited

(E) the authors who submit articles to Ergo for publication are more thorough in attributing quotations than are the authors who submit articles to Thought

The author says that the journals published in Thought contain some misattributed quotes, while the journals published in Ergo have none. He consequently concludes that the review committee at Ergo is more efficient than the committee at Thought in seeking out misattributed quotes.
The main point to be understood here is that the author has no idea how many correctly/incorrectly attributed quotes are being sent to the journals.
His inference that Ergo's committee is better is based on the assumption that Ergo also receives some misattributed quotes. Since Ergo's committee rectifies all of them (100% efficiency), it must be more efficient than Thought's review committee.
If this assumption was not made, the author would be unable to grade the efficiencies of the committees. If he assumed that Ergo got no misattributed quotes, then clearly the efficiency of the two committees couldn't even be a factor for contention.
Answer choice B.

I picked B.

My 2 cents on (D) the number of misattributed quotations in a journal is an accurate measure of how carefully that journal is edited

The argument isn't about how carefully the journal is edited, rather a measure of the effectiveness of the committee.

GMATNinja, chetan2u, nightblade354 dev369121 please share your thoughts.

Yes, you are correct. The argument doesn't ever speak about editing. It speaks about effectiveness and that too at finding misattributed quotations.
So it is related to misattributed quotations, and B fits in perfectly as a valid assumption.

VeritasKarishma- Could you please explain this question?

Why is B the answer?

The conclusion is that Ergo is more effective than Thought at pointing out misattributions. The evidence presented is that the quotations published in Ergo have no misattributions, whereas those published in Thought are at times misattributed.

This conclusion would have been true had we known that both journals receive misattributed quotes in the first place. We have no evidence of that. So, what if Ergo does not receive any misattributed quotes for publication?

That's why option B. is an assumption.

As regards option E, here the reference is being made to the authors who are submitting quotes. This has no bearing on the ability/effectiveness of the review committee. So, if Ergo has lesser misattributions than Thought, it's only because the authors are being more careful while submitting quotes, not because the review committee of Ergo is more effective at sifting through the misattributed quotes.

Each of the academic journals Thought and Ergo has a review committee to prevent misattributed quotations from appearing in its published articles. Nevertheless, about ten percent of the quotations in Thought's published articles are misattributed, whereas Ergo contains no misattributions. Ergo's committee is more effective, therefore, than Thought's at finding misattributed quotations.

Premise:
Article written by Authors -> Review Committee -> Get Published
Misattributed quotations:
Thought's published articles (10%) > Ergo's article (0%)

Conclusion: Ergo's committee is more effective, therefore than Thought's at finding misattributed quotations.

The argument above assumes that

(A) most of the articles submitted to Thought for publication contain misattributed quotations
- We do not have data on Ergo publication. Therefore given statement may or may not be true. So both cases arise, it can not be our assumption

(B) there are at least some misattributed quotations in articles submitted to Ergo for publication
- It was concluded that Ergo's review committee doing a better job than Thoughts'. Therefore, there must be some misattributed quotation in articles submitted to Ergo for publication, which Ergos's committee weeded out.

(C) the members of Ergo's committee are, on the whole, more knowledgeable than are the members of Thought's committee
- Irrelevant

(D) the number of misattributed quotations in a journal is an accurate measure of how carefully that journal is edited
-Irrelevant. The argument is about whose committee is doing a better job

(E) the authors who submit articles to Ergo for publication are more thorough in attributing quotations than are the authors who submit articles to Thought
- Argument is about the performance of the review committee

Each of the academic journals Thought and Ergo has a review committee to prevent misattributed quotations from appearing in its published articles. Nevertheless, about ten percent of the quotations in Thought's published articles are misattributed, whereas Ergo contains no misattributions. Ergo's committee is more effective, therefore, than Thought's at finding misattributed quotations.

The argument above assumes that

(A) most of the articles submitted to Thought for publication contain misattributed quotations - WRONG. What 'most' stand for T might not be same for E.

(B) there are at least some misattributed quotations in articles submitted to Ergo for publication - CORRECT. Had it not been the case(basically if you negate this choice) then E's RC's effectiveness is questionable since if there are no misattributed quotations then what RC reviews.

(C) the members of Ergo's committee are, on the whole, more knowledgeable than are the members of Thought's committee - WRONG. For it required another level of assumption that being knowledgeable is being more effective.

(D) the number of misattributed quotations in a journal is an accurate measure of how carefully that journal is edited - WRONG. Irrelevant.

(E) the authors who submit articles to Ergo for publication are more thorough in attributing quotations than are the authors who submit articles to Thought - WRONG. Spent some time on this. Being more thorough is okay but if its authors itself then RC's effectiveness is questionable. Though there still exists a number of possibilities to look for and precisely for this reason this is not a good choice.

Possible assumptions:
1. Both T's and E's RC are equally capable of preventing misattributed quotations from appearing in journals.
2. Both T's and E's RC are similar in thought process when it comes to what a misattributed quotations looks like i.e. if A is a quotation that is misattributed by T then E too thinks A is. It must not be the other way round that one thinks A is and other thinks that it is not.
3. In both T and E quotations that are later tagged as misattributed are submitted.

.... and there can many more possibilities like this.

CRUX: Why author jumps to concluded that its E's effectiveness in identifying misattributed quotations? Why it could not have been any other reason for such a situation where in T there are 10% misattributed quotations and in E there is none.

If one can find this looking for various possibilities is not required.

Answer B.

Hello from the GMAT Club VerbalBot!

Thanks to another GMAT Club member, I have just discovered this valuable topic, yet it had no discussion for over a year. I am now bumping it up - doing my job. I think you may find it valuable (esp those replies with Kudos).

Want to see all other topics I dig out? Follow me (click follow button on profile). You will receive a summary of all topics I bump in your profile area as well as via email.