Smithtown University's fund-raisers succeeded in getting donations fro

Dear Friends,

Here is the detailed explanation to this question-




Mind-map: Donations received from 80% people contacted → high conversion rate = fewer new donors contacted → inefficient canvassing methods

Missing link: Between high donor conversion rate and inefficient canvassing methods.

Expectation from the correct answer choice: To strengthen that canvassing methods were inefficient regardless of high donor conversion.

Choice A: This answer choice makes the point that Smithtown’s fundraising efforts showed the same amount of success in converting new potential donors as did most other university fundraising efforts; if the overall 80% success rate is unusually high for fundraising campaigns, then one can conclude that most donations were received from individuals who had also donated previously, as the magnitude of donations from new donors is the same as that obtained by most other university fundraisers; it is clear that the unusually high success rate is dependent on donations from donors who had also contributed previously, and that the number of new potential donors contacted by Smithtown’s fundraising campaign was low, pointing to the inefficiency of the campaign; as this strengthens the argument that Smithtown’s canvassing methods were inefficient regardless of high donor conversion, it is the correct answer choice.
Choice B: This answer choice makes the point that donations from new donors were larger than those from donors who had given to the university previously as well; it undermines the argument advanced in the question by establishing that Smithtown’s fundraising was able to secure larger donations from new donors, and is, therefore, an incorrect answer choice.
Choice C: This answer choice is irrelevant, as it makes it clear that individuals who donated to this year’s fundraiser and had also donated previously, had not been contacted by the fundraising campaign for the current year in the first place; thereby, it places these donations outside the purview of the fundraising campaign being discussed; it is, therefore, an incorrect answer choice that does not address the passage’s argument at all.
Choice D: This answer choice undermines the argument advanced in the question by highlighting that the magnitude of donations received from new donors was larger than that of donations received from donors who had also contributed in previous years; it is, therefore, an incorrect answer choice.
Choice E: This answer choice highlights that the majority of donations generated by the current year’s fundraising program were from new donors, signifying that Smithtown’s fundraising campaign was efficient in contacting new potential donors; as this answer choice weakens the argument, it is an incorrect answer choice.

Hence, A is the best answer choice.

To understand the concept of “Characteristics of a Strengthening Statement on GMAT Critical Reasoning,” you may want to watch the following video (~4 minutes):



All the best!
Experts' Global Team

Hi,

The main issue in option C is the underlined part.

This year most of the donations that came to Smithtown University from people who had previously donated to it were made without the university’s fund-raisers having made any contact with the donors.


If fund raisers have not contacted the donors, how can you judge if they have performed exceptionally well or not.

You can judge fund raiser performance by donors which they have contacted and argument discuss about 80% success rate of fund raisers they have contacted.

Introduction: This is an amazing question with probably the lowest accuracy among all official CR questions. Only 25% of people who attempt this question on GMAT Club get it right, and given my experience discussing this question with my students, I believe that even among people who get this question right, most don’t get it right for the right reasons. Given this background, I’ll probably err on the side of explaining more rather than explaining less in the solution below.

The Story

Smithtown University’s fund-raisers succeeded in getting donations from 80 percent of the potential donors they contacted. - STU’s FRs got donations from 80% of the potential donors they contacted i.e. for every 100 people they contacted, they got donations from 80 people.

This success rate, exceptionally high for university fund-raisers, does not indicate that they were doing a good job. - The non-essential modifier “exceptionally high for university fund-raisers” says that the 80% success rate is very very high for university FRs (That means normally, FRs have a much lower success rate).

This high success rate doesn’t mean that FRs were doing a good job. (Interesting! How can such a high success rate not mean a good job?)

On the contrary, since the people most likely to donate are those who have donated in the past, good fund-raisers constantly try less-likely prospects in an effort to expand the donor base. - The people most likely to donate are the people who have donated in the past. (That looks reasonable. Once a person makes a donation to a university, he may be more willing to donate again since he sees value in donating money to the university)

Since old donors have a high propensity to donate again, good FRs constantly try less-likely prospects (i.e. new donors) to expand the donor base.

(This statement makes sense, but how is it connected with the previous statement? The previous statement said that a high success rate indicates STU’s FRs didn’t do a good job, and this statement says good FRs constantly try less probable prospects. Ohh! The author is assuming that a high success rate of STU’s FRs is due to the reason that they didn’t contact the less-likely prospects i.e. new donors. The author thinks that STU’s FRs got a high success rate because they kept on contacting the old donors, who were very likely to donate.)

(I observe that many people don’t pause to connect a statement back to the previous statement. They keep on reading, hoping things will automatically connect. This works most of the time since we can understand most of the things naturally. However, things that we can’t understand ‘naturally’ need to be understood deliberately. So, you need to pay attention to whether you understand the relationship between a statement and its previous one. If you don’t, take a pause and try to understand. There’s no point rushing to get a question wrong!)

The high success rate shows insufficient canvassing effort. - This statement flows from the previous statement. In other words, this statement is supported by the previous statement. And this statement supports the second statement.

Why a high success rate doesn’t indicate that STU’s FRs were doing a good job? Because this high success rate shows insufficient canvassing effort.

GIST: The high success rate doesn’t indicate that STU’s FRs were doing a good job. Why? Because the high success rate shows insufficient canvassing effort. Why? Because good FRs constantly try less probable prospects.

The Gap

Since there are two levels of ‘whys’, there are two jumps/gaps in the argument:

1. From “Good FRs constantly try less probable prospects” to “The high success rate shows insufficient canvassing effort“

This gap is so subtle that it doesn’t look like a gap. It seems that one can infer from a high success rate of an FR that he must have made insufficient canvassing effort. However, there are two levels of gaps here:

(1) Are these STU FR’s average guys? What if these guys are overly adept at converting potential donors? In such a case, they might have a high success rate even though they may have contacted a lot of new donors. In such a case, their high success rate will not indicate that they did not contact new donors. Probably, they contacted a lot of new donors and were talented enough to convert a very high percentage of them.

(2) Let’s accept that they didn’t contact a lot of new donors. Can we now say that their high success rate shows insufficient canvassing effort? Not necessarily. What if these people deliberately contacted a smaller set of new donors but made a lot more effort per donor to convert the donor. That’s why they had a high success rate. In such a case, they contacted fewer donors but made more effort per donor. So, we won’t be able to say that their high success rate shows insufficient canvassing effort.

2. From “The high success rate shows insufficient canvassing effort” to “The high success rate doesn’t indicate that STU’s FRs were doing a good job“

Is there a jump here? Is it possible that even though the high success rate shows insufficient canvassing effort, we still can’t say that the high success rate doesn’t indicate that STU’s FR’s were doing a good job?

It is possible if the job of FRs includes more than just “canvassing”. Let’s say that the job of FRs also includes preparing canvassing material and shortlisting probable new donors. In such a case, FRs may not have made sufficient canvassing effort, but if they did a lot of good work in preparing canvassing material or shortlisting new donors, we can’t say that they did not do a good job! Right?

The Goal

We are looking for an option that most strengthens the argument. Any option that addresses the gaps identified above can be a valid strengthener.

The Evaluation

(A) Correct. The sentence compares the success rate of STU’s FRs and of FRs from other universities.* Success rate w.r.t. what? W.r.t. converting new donors. The sentence says that STU’s FRs had about the same success rate as FRs from other universities.

Oh! So, these STU guys are just like others; these people are not super-talented. Now, if we go back to the first gap identified above, we can see that this option eliminates a loophole in the argument. If STU FRs are just like others and thus are not overly talented, then their high (overall) success rate is likely due to the fact that they mainly contacted old donors and not the new donors and thus made insufficient canvassing effort.

*If you have trouble understanding this statement, I’ve shared a video at the end of this solution in which I share how I read options A, B, and C.

(B) Incorrect. This option compares the average size of the donations to STU from two kinds of donors:

1. New donors whom STU’s FRs contacted
2. Old donors

The option says that the average size of the donation from the first kind of donors was greater than the average size of the donations from the old donors.

Many people reject this option, saying that the argument doesn’t talk about the average size of donations and that thus this option is out of scope. The logic is completely wrong since a strengthener always provides new information. The reason why people don’t realize the incorrectness of this logic is that they apply this logic inconsistently. If they applied this logic consistently on every option, they’d realize that many correct options can also be rejected for this reason. Rather, even option A can be rejected on the grounds that the argument nowhere talks about fundraisers from other universities.

This option is a mild weakener since if the new donors donated a lot of money, then probably STU FRs did a good job. Probably, FRs spent more effort per donor to extract more money out of every donor. In such a case, they probably made sufficient canvassing effort – not in terms of contacting a lot of new donors but in terms of extracting more money from every new donor.

A bit bigger nuance now. The reason I say that this option is a ‘mild’ weakener is that the comparison presented in this option could be a constant factor. I mean to say that it is entirely possible that new donors always donate, on average, more than old donors. It is possible that every new donor donates a large amount for the first time and then donate a small amount every year. In such a case, the information presented in option B doesn’t tell us anything special about STU’s FRs.

(C) Incorrect. More than 60% of people mark this option on GMAT Club! This option says that most of the donations to STU from old donors came without FRs contacting those donors. So, these old donors donated on their own without any contact from FRs.

Many people think that this option means that most of the donations to STU came without any contact from FRs. That means that these FRs are useless. They are getting less than 50% of the donations; the majority of the donations are coming on their own. Well, these people miss the modifier ‘who had previously donated to it’. Thus, this option is not talking about most of the donations; it’s talking about most of the donations from old donors.

This option can also be a mild weakener since it can be taken to indicate that STU’s FRs did not contact many old donors. In such a case, they likely contacted more new donors. Thus, the argument gets weakened.

Again, I say that this is a ‘mild’ weakener since, like option B, this option can also be a constant factor. It is entirely possible that every year, the majority of donations from old donors come without any canvassing. In such a case, this option doesn’t tell us anything special about STU’s FRs.

(D) Incorrect. This option says that the majority of the donations to STU came from new donors. This option, thus, weakens the argument.

However, this option also suffers from the possibility that this could also be a constant factor. It is possible that every year, 60% of the donations come from new donors. So, getting a majority of the donations from new donors is nothing special. A good weakener would be an option that compares the performance of FRs this year with the general performance of FRs. For example:

A greater than usual proportion of the donations that fund-raisers succeeded in getting for Smithtown University this year were from donors who had never given to the university before.

(E) Incorrect. This option says that most of the money raised by STU’s FRs came from new donors. This option, thus, weakens the argument.

However, this option also suffers from the possibility that this could also be a constant factor. It is possible that every year, 60% of the raised money comes from new donors. So, getting most of the money from new donors is nothing special. A good weakener would be an option that compares the performance of FRs this year with the general performance of FRs. For example:

A greater than usual proportion of the money raised by Smithtown University’s fund-raisers came from donors who had never given to the university before.

If you have any doubts regarding any part of this solution, please feel free to ask.

Here’s the video in which I explain how to understand options A, B, and C:



- CJ

PS: This solution was originally posted on this link.

I had a feeling the answer was A, but I do not agree. The prompt is indicating that the canvassing effort was "insufficient" while answer C indicates that the campaign was on par with other campuses. Trending towards the mean is not the same thing as being insufficient, there would need to be more evidence that the average canvassing effort of universities is insufficient.

We have 2 kinds of people. New Donors and Old Donors.
The argument assumes that the potential donors that were contacted were majorly Old Donors.
Therefore, since they would donate anyway as they have in the past, 80% success rate means nothing.

In fact, I noted all other options to be mild to strong weakeners.
E) Weakens by saying that more than 50% money came from new donors. Therefore the fund-raiser is good. But this weakens conclusion that the fundraiser is not good.

D) D is actually equal to E.

C) This states the opposite of the assumption. If the old donors were not contacted and yet they made the contribution, then who were the potential donors that were contacted. Of-course it has to be the new donors. And 80% is a great success with the new donors. Weakens.

B) Weakens again, by saying that the average size of donation from new donors is greater than old. So how is the fund-raiser not a good job.
Although this doesn’t really connect with the premises, it does impact the conclusion.

A By elimination. But what it really says is that Smithtown guys contacted new donors as frequently as other college guys did. Therefore, the potential new donors they contacted did not have a disproportionate number of new donors. Therefore, high success rate means nothing.

GMATNinja, AndrewN, AjiteshArun Could please explain the meaning by separating each chunk of option A?

(A) Smithtown University’s fund-raisers were successful in their contacts with potential donors who had never given before about as frequently as were fund-raisers for other universities in their contacts with such people.

Could you please break down the bold part, show the omitted words and do things in order to make the meaning easier?

In this segment," who had never given before" does this part refer to the people who never donated?

Hello, sjuniv32. (I will admit right off the bat that I spent an unusual 2:32 on this question, one that I had not seen before. I felt good about (A), but I wanted to take the time to feel just as good about eliminating the other options.) Since your question pertains more to the meaning of a specific answer choice, I will stick to that topic.

1) The who clause is restrictive and modifies potential donors, so the group can be thought of as first-time donors to Smithtown University.

2) Fund-raisers from other universities contacted the same potential first-time donors. (Pick it up from fund-raisers.)

3) The fund-raising groups above, both 1 and 2, were about equally successful in persuading first-time donors to give money to their respective universities. ("Were successful... about as frequently as...")

Putting it all together: The fund-raisers at Smithtown University were generally no more successful in getting donations from potential first-time donors than were fund-raisers at other universities.

The language of the answer choices, not just (A), is not the clearest, but in any case, I hope my interpretation of the bold part you drew attention to makes more sense now. Thank you for thinking to ask.

- Andrew

Did not understand the option correctly and eliminated prematurely.

(A) Smithtown University’s fund-raisers were successful in their contacts with potential donors who had never given before about as frequently as were fund-raisers for other universities in their contacts with such people.

The option stated that they were able to extract from people who did not pay earlier about as frequently as their counterparts in other universities.

Inference drawn by me:
* Was able to extract money from people who did not donate - so they were doing a good job - eliminated

Point that should have been inferred:
* Their ability to do so was not any better than other universities - they were doing an average job

The answer is A because the whole point was that potential donators are likely to give donations and the option A says they contacted potential donators. I'm not very strong in CR but this was the trigger for me.

But IMO it is not about better efforts by the SU's fund raisers. It is about insufficient canvassing efforts right.
Option A tells us they were not better than other universities but what if there canvassing effort was far better than their canvassing effort last year?
Sometimes these assumption & strengthen questions cross the lines set by GMAT itself.

Is it just me or somebody else also feels this way?

LIKE THIS QUESTION -
https://gmatclub.com/forum/as-an-experi ... 90329.html

Please help.

Can someone explain why I am thinking wrong here.



What if other universities are also are doing excellent. Choice A implies that Smithtown University is also doing excellent.
How can we conclude that donors who had never given before means first time donors and not donors who didn't donate before even when asking for it.

. This success rate, exceptionally high for university fund-raisers,
it seems this high success rate same as that of other university results.

--> it indicates things were smooth and easy to get donations from old donors.
-> all universities did normal efforts.all had good results.

similar to :
this year everyone got 90% marks .it indicates student didnt work so hard.
If only few students have 90% ( exceptionally high) and others have much less than 90% then it implies that 90% students worked really hard.

For A to be correct are we assuming that the other Universities have average contacts as well? I mean it doesnt really mention that anywhere. For all we know other universities get 60% donations but they have much higher donations from first time donators.

Understanding the argument - ­
Smithtown University’s fund-raisers succeeded in getting donations from 80 percent of the potential donors they contacted. - Fact/Background info. 
This success rate, exceptionally high for university fund-raisers, does not indicate that they were doing a good job. - Intermediate conclusion. 
On the contrary, since the people most likely to donate are those who have donated in the past, good fund-raisers constantly try less-likely prospects in an effort to expand the donor base. - Fact. Explains the success criteria for the fund-raisers which is "try less-likely prospects in an effort to expand the donor base." 
The high success rate shows insufficient canvassing effort. - Conclusion. 

Option Elimination - Strengthen 

(A) Smithtown University’s fund-raisers were successful in their contacts with potential donors who had never given before about as frequently as were fund-raisers for other universities in their contacts with such people. - If they were average in their success, how can they be exceptional? So the only way they can be exceptional is if they contact the ones who'll donate. Strengthens that "The high success rate shows insufficient canvassing effort." 

(B) This year the average size of the donations to Smithtown University from new donors when the university’s fund-raisers had contacted was larger than the average size of donations from donors who had given to the university before. - This is comparing " the average size of the donations to Smithtown University from new donors" and "the average size of donations from donors who had given to the university before." Say the average size of donations from the 2 new donors is $1 million and the 2000 old one is $0.7 million. But that doesn't give information about the canvassing effect - how many or what percentage of new ones they contacted. Distortion. 

(C) This year most of the donations that came to Smithtown University from people who had previously donated to it were made without the university’s fund-raisers having made any contact with the donors. - It's a bit contradictory to the data in the argument. The argument says 80% of the people they contacted donated, leaving 20% whom they contacted but did not donate. This option says that "without the university’s fund-raisers having made any contact with the donors," which is out of scope. 

(D) The majority of the donations that fund-raisers succeeded in getting for Smithtown University this year were from donors who had never given to the university before. - Weakener. 

(E) More than half of the money raised by Smithtown University’s fund-raisers came from donors who had never previously donated to the university. - Weakener.