The ancient Egyptian pharaoh Akhenaten, who had a profound

The argument talks about an ancient Egyptian pharaoh Akhenaten,
who was well loved and highly respected by his subjects.
It also talks his palace guards who had a fiece loyalty for him.

Since, we are asked to find out a questionable technique used to deduce the conclusion
we can go with 'Make a generalization based on a sample that is likely to be unrepresentative'(Option C)
because the palace guards have a duty to be loyal to the pharoah.
Using that as an example,we can't say that to be true for everyone(his subjects)

someone kindly explain why B cant be the answer of this question.

Although i was able to answer the question correctly but i feel B is also correct because we can not challenge what is written in the documents.

Bunuel MartyTargetTestPrep daagh sayantanc2k GMATNinja

how to eliminate B?

Hello, everyone. I see several questions about (B), so I thought I would offer my thoughts on how to eliminate it. Perhaps my recollection of an art history class helped me out on this one. Specifically, I recall that Akhenaten came along and told everyone to abandon the old gods, the ones they had been worshipping for generations, and to worship the new god (a sun god, I believe), Aten, instead, who, naturally, was the divine father of Akhenaten. He changed the art of the time, which before had been broken down in grid-like fashion to fit a specific proportion for each specific angle (profile or directly facing the viewer); instead, he looked rather human. He was even portrayed as having a belly and playing with his children. (See this image.) The Egyptians in the court were not happy with all these radical changes, but what could they do? Akhenaten was the pharaoh. To make a long story short, Akhenaten was killed before too long, and so hated were his changes that all public images of him were ordered to be defaced, literally chiseled down to make the likeness of the man unrecognizable. (Obviously, some images survived.) In short, he was not a popular ruler.

How does all this help us with (B)? Look at it again, in light of the question, which asks us to spot a questionable technique used in the argument:



As was the case in real life, it makes perfect sense that his palace guards would have shown fierce loyalty to their pharaoh during his reign. It was only afterward that they quite boldly disrespected him. So how would the evidence, in principle, be impossible to challenge? It is rather easy to suggest that the personal guards of just about any high ruler (particularly an off-with-his-head type) had a personal agenda in praising that ruler in reports written from that sliver of time. The evidence is therefore suspect, not so different from Galileo recanting his heliocentric theory under threats of torture. Did Galileo mean it? Of course not. If someone pointed to the documented words of Galileo recanting that theory, would those words be impossible to challenge? I leave you with that thought. (C) is a much better answer.

Pardon the historical detour, but I enjoyed the Egyptian unit in that art history course. Do I think this question would appear on the GMAT™? No, but it makes a fine LSAT question, and the same type of logic does appear from time to time in boldface questions.

I hope that helps. Good luck with your studies.

- Andrew
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Hi @AnirudhaS
I see what you mean and that's exactly what I struggled with too while reading the OAs. This is how I convinced myself against choosing option B -

As @AndrewN pointed out, it is not impossible to challenge this evidence as one can always point out that there may have been an ulterior motive for the guards to have said good things about their pharaoh in the reports. However, what we can't do is go back in time and "verify" the truth behind those comments (how genuine, or otherwise) given by the guards.

It would help to differentiate between challenging the evidence (something we can do) and verifying the correctness or otherwise of it (something we can't do)

Hope this helps a bit.

Palace guards represents a faction of the total population and thus the conclusion arrived at may be a generalisation of the total sample (Population)


Answer will hence be (C)
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Please help to eliminate choice B.

Hi AndrewN
thanks for reverting back on this question.
I read through your explanation and it did not necessarily clear my doubt.

Question) So how would the evidence, in principle, be impossible to challenge?

In essence the stimulus says - "...as documented in reports written during Akhenaten‟s reign."
So it was ONLY documented in reports.
The stimulus does not mention any other medium which can verify these reports.
So the reports (here evidence) are impossible to challenge.

What got me was I came down to B and C and both were equally appealing answers. So my question to you would be how to differentiate which is a better out of the two options? [I am facing this issue of coming down to the last 2 and guessing on a few questions, so looking forward to your advice]

Also why did you say this, I want to understand if practising LSAT questions is not an ideal strategy for GMAT preparations?

Hello again, AnirudhaS. Whenever you get to a 50/50 situation between what you think may be the correct answer, you want, fittingly enough, to think like a lawyer and see which one is harder to argue against. In all seriousness, look to attack each option. When I look at (B), I also see a common trap in the absolute, overreaching language: impossible. Oh, really? I might think. How might it be possible? The key to overcoming your knee-jerk reactions to CR (or logical reasoning) answers is to stop seeing only what you want to see. Consider that an alternative interpretation might be more accurate. Again, when I look at (C), I see a few caution signs. The definitive language is a cue to the underlying problem, and regardless of whether the reports in question provide the sole evidence that Akhenaten even existed, I cannot take them at face value and assume that they were produced with impartiality.

Meanwhile, if you look at (C), notice the restrained language in likely to be. This type of cautious language is a hallmark of correct answers. That is, it would be way easier to debate a statement that said, Make a generalization based on a sample that is unrepresentative. Now we are in your mental territory. How would we know—for certain—that the sample was unrepresentative? We would need other samples to draw a proper comparison.

Finally, you asked a question about studying LSAT questions for GMAT™ preparation purposes. I have been outspoken in sharing my views against this practice, and I am not alone. Ron Purewal, for instance, has said the same thing in an archived Manhattan Prep thread. LSAT questions tend to be constructed with formal logic in mind, at least much more so than their GMAT™ counterparts. This is not to say that LSAT questions cannot be useful, just that many of them are not reflective of GMAT™ material, and you can get bent out of shape for no good reason if you are using questions that have only a bit of correlation with those you will see on the test you will actually be taking.

I hope that helps. Thank you, Sonia96, for chiming in.

- Andrew
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AndrewN Thank you good sir. I'm highly indebted to your invaluable advice in the forum. Have a nice day.

GMATNinja

Kindly guide what should be the argument to eliminate B.

Support for answer B
Argument: Pharaoh was loved and respected by his subjects
Option B states that the argument above relies on evidence: the fierce loyalty show to him by his palace guards, as documented in reports, that in principle would be impossible to challenge. It's impossible to challenge because we cannot say that the guards showed him respect because of other reasons eg. they feared him. We cannot say this because it's impossible to prove this so we are simply relying on the reports documented back in the day.

Why is B still wrong?