People with Williams syndrome, a rare mental condition, are often high

A
are misleadingly labeled mentally retarded. As evaluated by conventional means such as IQ tests, their intelligence is no higher than that of people with Down's syndrome,

This is a Main Point/Conclusion type question, whose correct answer may have the following characteristics:

1) It captures the argument in its entirety
2) It is a Must be true/Accurate Inference
3) It paraphrases the conclusion

Answer choices that do not capture the author's total point or merely capture a segment of the author's point are wrong. Answer choice C is an example of such a wrong answer choice. While it can be inferred from the stimulus that "conventional methods of measuring intelligence tend to consider basic mathematical and spatial ability to be more important than verbal and musical skills", the main point of the argument has to do with William's Syndrome, which is totally ignored by Answer choice C.

The correct answer is A, as it fulfills the above-mentioned prerequisites, namely:
1) It captures the argument in its entirety
2) It is a Must be true/Accurate Inference
3) It paraphrases the conclusion

Cheers,
Der alte Fritz

A no doubt. The usage of "uniformly" knocks C out of contention in my opinion. A is tough as it seems to generalize, but is not incorrect.

Different version of same question :

https://gmatclub.com/forum/people-with- ... l#p2151727

Moderators may link the 2 discussions.

This is an Inference question that asks which of the following conclusions is best supported by the claims in the passage. The author says that conventional intelligence tests mis-evaluate people with Williams syndrome because they're poor at math and can't distinguish left from right. The author notes that people with Williams syndrome are often gifted in other areas, such as language and music. The conventional tests don't do a good job of evaluating the people with Williams syndrome and similar disorders because they fail to identify the special abilities these people possess. Therefore, (A) is correct.

(B) makes an unwarranted comparison between people with Williams Syndrome and people with other intellectual disabilities regarding their relative abilities in music and language and in math and spatial reasoning. Because the passage addresses IQ tests only insofar as they are unable to accurately measure the abilities of people with Williams Syndrome, the claim (C) makes about what traditional IQ tests consider important is unsupported. (D) is incorrect because the idea that society benefits from the special abilities of people Williams Syndrome is never mentioned. And, (E) is wrong because the author never suggests that the mathematical and spatial skills of people with Williams syndrome either can or should be developed.

KAPLAN OFFICIAL EXPLANATION:

A

The author says that conventional methods of measuring intelligence, such as IQ tests, classify people with Williams syndrome as retarded, on a par with Down's syndrome sufferers, because they're poor at math and can't tell left from right. He calls this label "misleading," pointing out that people with Williams syndrome are often gifted in other areas, such as language and music, whereas Down's syndrome sufferers have limited abilities in all areas. His point in telling us this is that the conventional tests don't do a good job of evaluating the people with Williams syndrome, since they miss the gifts that these people have. That's (A): His argument is that conventional intelligence tests can't accurately measure people with disorders like Williams syndrome.

When you're asked for the author's point, be careful not to be misled by choices that simply restate a part of the author's argument. For instance, (B) may or may not be true (it's not stated by the author), but it's not the author's main point. He compares the two syndromes to make another point, about the failure of conventional intelligence tests. (C) is closer: the author seems to imply (C), but this isn't what he's trying to prove. It's merely a piece of his argument, something that he implies on the way to making his point about the failure of intelligence tests to measure people with Williams syndrome. (D) discusses what might happen when people with Williams syndrome are diagnosed as mentally retarded, but the author's focus is on the mislabeling itself, not on its possible results. Like (C), (D) seems reasonably inferable from the argument, but isn't the point of the argument. As for (E), the author never suggests that the mathematical and spatial skills of people with Williams syndrome either can or should be developed.

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