souvik101990 wrote:
This question is part of the GMAT Club Critical Reasoning : Evaluate Revision Project. The director of programming at NNN, the National News Network, proclaimed that, despite charges to the contrary, the Network does not have a conservative bias. The director acknowledged that, when a liberal news personality was recently added to the Network, an additional conservative news program was also established. However, the director argued that far from demonstrating any bias, these actions reflect a commitment to presenting a balanced perspective in interpreting current events. Which of the following pieces of information would be most useful in evaluating the validity of the programming director’s argument?
A. The Network has established an additional liberal news program whenever an additional conservative news personality has been added.
B. The Network airs a program focused largely on the opinions of its viewers on contemporary issues.
C. The newly added liberal news personality came from a rival network with an acknowledged liberal bias.
D. The newly added liberal news personality has indicated that he has not felt any editorial pressure in his new environment.
E. The viewer ratings of the Network have been lower this past year than in previous years.
This is an evaluate type question ; We can easily narrow down to two options A and D.
To resolve the confusion between the two choices , we should do the Variance Analysis Test (thanks to
e-gmat.com).That is, the correct answer will strengthen the argument if the option is true and weaken the argument if the argument is not true i.e. falsified OR vice versa.So basically we check two extremes- STRENGTHEN AND WEAKEN.
Possible assumption- "liberal news personality = an additional conservative news program"
Conclusion-'the Network does not have a conservative bias'
Analysis of option A-
Extreme 1-The Network
has established an additional liberal news program whenever an additional conservative news personality has been added- Validates the conclusion/argument-
Strengthens the conclusion of the director.Extreme 2- The Network
has NOT established an additional liberal news program whenever an additional conservative news personality has been added- Invalidates the conclusion/argument.-
Weakens the conclusion of the director.Analysis of option D-
Extreme 1-The newly added liberal news personality has indicated that he has
not felt any editorial pressure in his new environment- So he can maintain his views.
Extreme 2-The newly added liberal news personality has indicated that he has
felt any editorial pressure in his new environment- May be he is forced to have conservative views OR may be he is forced to maintain his liberal views.-
Neither strengthens nor weakensSo option D is wrong because it fails to pass the extreme. test
Hope the above helps!!!
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