The Asian American History Association receives approximately 1,000 pr

Question

The Asian American History Association receives approximately 1,000 proposals each year from individuals who wish to present papers at its annual meeting. The association’s officers would like to ensure constant standards of quality in the presentations from year to year. The officers have therefore decided to accept for presentation each year only the best 300 papers selected on the basis of the quality of the proposals submitted.

Of the following, the best criticism of the officers’ plan is that the plan assumes that

(A) Professional associations cannot accept all papers submitted for presentation at their annual meetings.

(B) The total number of proposals submitted to the association will remain at approximately 1,000 in future years.

(C) Each proposal submitted to the association deserves to be considered a serious candidate for presentation.

(D) It is difficult to judge the quality of a paper on the basis of the proposal alone.

(E) The best 300 papers submitted to the association for presentation will be of the same quality from year to year.

I trimmed down to D and E.
Plan: select presentation based on  only best 300 papers each year   and   on the basis of proposals 
So I felt that failure to meet any one criteria would be suffice.
D: Can not Judge based on proposal alone.
E: best 300 may not be of same quality each year.

I chose D.

Please provide your explanation.

TommyWallach · Accepted Answer

Hey All,

Took a read through this question, and at the risk of sounding contradictory, I think it's a pretty great question. Quite tough, but with plenty of justification for the right answer.

Conclusion: Taking 300 best papers (proposals) will ensure constant standards of quality in presentation
Premise: 1000 proposals a year
Assumption: The 300 best will always have the same quality; proposals = papers = presentations

I know it may look like I simply wrote the correct answer choice here in my assumption, but I also added the second one. The truth is, there wouldn't be a way to know which of those two the question would choose to focus on. Let's go through the answer choices one by one and see what we can find.

(A) Professional associations cannot accept all papers submitted for presentation
at their annual meetings.
PROBLEM: Whether or not this is true, it's totally irrelevant, because we've already been told the Association only plans to accept a fraction of the total submissions.

(B) The total number of proposals submitted to the association will remain at
approximately 1,000 in future years.
PROBLEM: This is the trickiest answer, and it's easiest to see why it's wrong when we compare it to the correct answer. Basically, whether or not there were 1000 submissions every year, that still wouldn't have much of an effect on the overall quality of the best 300 (whether there were 300 in total, or 3000). We don't NEED to assume this, even though it may feel like we would.

(C) Each proposal submitted to the association deserves to be considered a
serious candidate for presentation.
PROBLEM: This is a lot like A. We already know they're cutting out about 700, so clearly we don't need EVERY submission to be a serious candidate for presentation.

(D) It is difficult to judge the quality of a paper on the basis of the proposal alone.
PROBLEM: This one is also really tricky, and held me up for a minute. Remember though, the conclusion is that we will have constant quality  in the presentations . So we don't necessarily need to know that the paper will be of the same quality of the proposal. HOWEVER, as far as I can see, if this answer choice said "It is difficult to judge the quality of a PRESENTATION on the basis of the proposal alone", it would be a little better. Of course, there's an even bigger problem, in that we care about CONSISTENCY, not overall quality. Even if the presentations are way worse (or way better) than their proposals/papers, we only care if that quality changes.

(E) The best 300 papers submitted to the association for presentation will be of
the same quality from year to year.
ANSWER: We need to assume this. To prove it, let's try the NOT test. "The best 300 papers submitted to the association for presentation will NOT be of the same quality from year to year." Uh-oh. Now, even if we take the best 300 every year, we can not be assured of any consistency in the overall quality.

Hope that helps!

-t

icandy · Answer

There is a twist in this Q. Look at what the Q is asking for. For lack of better words, the Q is asking for weakening assumption.

the best criticism of the officers' plan is that the plan assumes that

If the plan assumes D, which says that " It is difficult to judge the quality of a paper on the basis of the proposal alone" . Is that a best criticism of the plan. If the plan is assuming so, it is not a criticism of the plan.

If the plan  assumes (might/might not be true) E, it is in direct violation of their requirement to maintain a consistency in the quality year after year.

Hence E.

shalva · Answer

Officers decided to choose Top300 each year "to ensure constant standards of quality ". Obviously, they assume that those 300 articles will be of the same quality. Therefore, (E)

sdutta27 · Answer

In this type of questions we will consider every answer choices to be an assumption made about the argument.
Then we will try to criticize or attack the assumption as per the question stem.

In D if we assume that --it is difficult to judge the quality of the paper on the proposals alone-- this statement is already criticizing itself we can't attack this assumption.If it was like "it is NOT difficult to judge the quality of the paper on the proposals alone"- then we could have attack or criticize this answer choice. SO D is ruled out.

If we look at E it says "The best 300 papers submitted to the association for presentation will be of the same quality from year to year"- if this be taken an as assumption , we can criticize or weaken it because best 300 papers may not be of same quality from year to year". It can be same in 1st,2nd but may not be in 3rd or 4th years and so on.

So E is my pick.

Let me know if explanations are right.

sanzeer · Answer

I'm little bit confused between D and E .Can you please explain why E is as correct answer

David01232000 · Answer

It makes sense why E is the answer and I understand that "The association’s officers would like to ensure constant standards of quality in the presentations from year to year" is the conclusion but how do I determine the premise? Should it be " The association’s officers would like to ensure constant standards of quality in the presentations from year to year"?  I think that would've helped me a lot here.

shwedash · Answer

I'm really confused between options D and E

Aashimabhatia · Answer

The officers are assuming that it is possible to determine the quality of papers based on the proposal alone, hence the plan will work. If anything, D kind of goes in the opposite direction, by saying that officers are assuming it is difficult to determine the quality based on proposal. Hence, D is not an assumption made, which is why it cannot be a flawed assumption.

Whereas E is the correct option, as the officers plan = Maintaining standard of quality of papers every year. What if the 300 best papers were of differing quality each year? For example, in 2024, there were 500 proposals submitted that matched the expected quality and the rest were not upto the mark. 300 of the best proposals are selected and standard is maintained. The plan works.
But what if in 2025, only 100 proposals submitted were of the quality that matched officer's standard? They will still select 300 best papers, out of which 200 will not be according to the expected quality and hence, the standards fall. Note that the plan doesn't work in this case. 
Therefore, E is a flawed assumption.

The Asian American History Association receives approximately 1,000 pr

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The Asian American History Association receives approximately 1,000 pr

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615 to 715 in 15 Days (Ria's Strategies)

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