Some say that Saddlebrook College provides the best value in our state

C & D are equally good.How can you say C is good and not D..?

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The question stem asks us to find a strengthener, or a must be true and not a could be true.

In our case :
(C) It is not true that Saddlebrook College provides the best value in our state. --> This option can be read between the latter part of argument
(D) Student income after graduation is a valid means of judging the value of a college education. --> Whereas this option is more like an assumption, there is clear gap between the claim given and this statement with no filler, and to infer that would be bit extreme

Hope it helped

C jumped out to me, but I could understand how people might acccidentally pick D

Had the question been to identify the assumption, would Option D be correct?
Please someone clarify.

I think everything but the correct answer, C, could be construed as an assumption.

No, because the conclusion talks about students pay less. D says how to evaluate the college. D cannot be interpreted as a possible assumption.

Regards

This one is pretty tricky if you ask me. I think the key here is to really focus on what the question is asking.

"The information above, if true, most strongly supports which of the following judgments?"

The stem is not asking which will strengthen your assumption. It is basically asking: The Premises above strengthen which of the following conclusions?

(C) It is not true that Saddlebrook College provides the best value in our state. This is a conclusion (aka judgement), and the premises clearly give you this conclusion..
(D) Student income after graduation is a valid means of judging the value of a college education. This is not a conclusion or judgment. This is just validating that the premise is helpful information.

I incorrectly chose D and have now come to this reasoning. Hope this helps someone else!

There can be no other answer except 'C'.
Of course the author here assumes that 'best value' is measured based on these these parameters:
pay less, enjoy newer buildings and smaller class sizes, and earn larger incomes after graduation.


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Well, we don’t know from the argument if Tunbridge is the best in state. We just know that Saddlebrook is not the best because Tunbridge has better experience/outcomes

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Hi Expert,

I have a question.

In choice C, how can we infer that it is not true that SC provides the best value, just because what TC students said?

In my opinion, it can be infer only that "some" students think that SC doesn't provide the best value.

Please explain.

In Inference questions, we have to choose the answer considering all the statements provided are true.
so selecting C is a clear violation of that.
Please explain where am I going wrong

VeritasKarishma GMATNinja
Could you please explain this question, specially option C and D ?

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OE

The question asks what judgement, or conclusion, must follow from the exact words of the passage. Answers that could be true are incorrect.

(A) The argument states that “[s]ome say that Saddlebrook College provides the best value in our state,” and then offers evidence opposing that statement. It does not have to be true that Tunbridge provides the best value in the state; there could be other colleges in the state.
(B) The passage provides no information about entrance requirements or the quality of the student body.
(C) CORRECT. The second sentence in the passage describes various ways in which Tunbridge is a better value than Saddlebrook, so it must follow that Saddlebrook is not the best value.
(D) This choice represents an assumption in the argument—that income after graduation is part of evaluating which college provides the best value—but the question asks for a conclusion, not an assumption within the argument.
(E) This choice is irrelevant—“satisfaction” is not the same as “value.”

Lets break down why C) is correct. Remember, when doing inference questions, you have to be factual, we cannot make assumptions here.

Starting with A) Tunbridge College provides the best value in our state. This cannot be correct because the passage only states that students at Tunbridge College pay less, enjoy newer buildings and smaller class sizes, and earn larger incomes after graduation. This does not mean that they provide the best value in the state because they are just reporting that they pay less for example. Eliminate A

B) No where in the passage does it state that Tunbridge's entrance requirements are stricter. Eliminate.

C) It is not true that Saddlebrook College provides the best value in our state.
Keep, this one is the correct answer. The passage states that "some say Saddlebrook college provides the best value in our state". However, there is an existing college in Tunbridge that provides better value, as students pay less, enjoy new buildings, have smaller class sizes, and earn larger incomes. This indicates that Saddlebrook really doesn't provide the best value because there is an existing alternative that does. It also does not state that Turnbridge provides the best value in the state. Therefore, this is the right choice.

D) eliminate, this is not relevant to the passage

E) The passage did not state anything about students at Tunbridge comparing experiences to those at Saddlebrook, it simply stated that they pay less, enjoy new building and smaller class sizes and earn larger incomes after graduation. Eliminate

If we were to required to find the assumption behind the argument, could we say option (D) to be our answer?

GMATNinja Bunuel KarishmaB any help on this one please

This is in no way a valid question, and it's not close. The GMAT cannot ask you to make judgments on vague assessments such as "best value" without providing clear criteria. For all we know, there may be 10 other metrics that would show Saddlebrook to be a better value. We should always watch out for situations in which someone cherry-picks data to present to us, and then comes to some grand conclusion, without allowing us access to any data that might disconfirm that conclusion. This is exactly the kind of dangerous reasoning the GMAT is training us to avoid.

None of the answers provide anything we can logically infer from the given statements, so I'm afraid this whole question needs to be scrapped or severely rewritten.