In a recent study of responses to visual images, researchers found tha

Question

In a recent study of responses to visual images, researchers found that women most frequently gave the rating ‘most attractive’ to images of male faces that were more feminine in contour, and rated more masculine faces, on average, ‘less attractive’. The researchers concluded that modern women prefer men who are less obviously masculine in their facial features.

The conclusion would be most severely weakened if which of the following were true?

A. Facial features are not the criterion that most women use to decide whether a man is attractive. 
B. The visual images were computer generated composites of photographs and not pictures of actual men. 
C. The rating scale was a ten point scale with most attractive scoring 1-2 and least attractive scoring 8-10. 
D. Most popular male actors have the features that the study allocated to the more masculine category. 
E. The faces with the more masculine features were all significantly older than those with the feminine features.

DesiGmat · Answer

A. Facial features are not the criterion that most women use to decide whether a man is attractive.
 It is not hitting the conclusion.

B. The visual images were computer generated composites of photographs and not pictures of actual men. 
 Not relevant.

C. The rating scale was a ten point scale with most attractive scoring 1-2 and least attractive scoring 8-10. 
 Irrelevant

D. Most popular male actors have the features that the study allocated to the more masculine category. 
 Study is based on men in general not on male actors.

E. The faces with the more masculine features were all significantly older than those with the feminine features. 
 This hits the conclusion. The males with the masculine features are older. This information creates the doubt by stating that may be old age is the reason for women not getting attracted to the male with masculine features.

Hence E is correct

aditya8062 · Answer

E seems best : The faces with the more masculine features were all significantly older than those with the feminine features.

E provides an  alternate reason  and hence weaken the argument

aadikamagic · Answer

What is the issue with A here. A says that women might be attracted to something else apart from facial features.

AmoyV · Answer

In a recent study of responses to visual images, researchers found that women most frequently gave the rating ‘most attractive’ to images of male faces that were more feminine in contour, and rated more masculine faces, on average, ‘less attractive’. The researchers concluded that modern women prefer men who are less obviously masculine in their facial features.

The conclusion would be most severely weakened if which of the following were true?
 Maybe pre-modern women liked the same features in men.

A. Facial features are not the criterion that most women use to decide whether a man is attractive.  Tempting. But we are only concerned about the impact of "visual images" on the perceived attractiveness of men to women. In the real world there can be other factors other than facial features but the experiment is not concerned with those. This option is Out of Scope. 
B. The visual images were computer generated composites of photographs and not pictures of actual men.  That doesnt dis-credit the conclusion. The conclusion still stands 
C. The rating scale was a ten point scale with most attractive scoring 1-2 and least attractive scoring 8-10.  This is irrelevant to our conclusion. The nitty gritty of the experiment doesnt matter 
D. Most popular male actors have the features that the study allocated to the more masculine category.  We have no reason to believe that the "popular male actors" are popular ONLY because of female followers. 
E. The faces with the more masculine features were all significantly older than those with the feminine features. Correct. This would shatter the conclusion that said that "less masculine" faces were more attractive to women. This would change the conclusion to "younger faces are more attractive to women"

mvictor · Answer

this is a weaken type of question. to weaken the conclusion most efficiently, we can identify the conclusion and negate it. the assumption here might be = facial features are the criterion used by modern women to decide whether a man is attractive. negate it = facial features are not the criterion used by modern women to decide whether a man is attractive. do you see the subtle change in meaning in answer choice A? A talks about the majority = 51-100 of ALL women, while the argument says about ALL MODERN women. what if the minority of women (1-50) are modern women? A is out. B - where the images were taken is out of scope. C - what the rating scale was is out of scope. D - popular does not mean attractive (sorry Ed Sheeran - thought right away about you, though u are handsome, no homo

) E - yes! if faces with more masculine features were old, then of course women would select the young faces as more attractive.

Hero8888 · Answer

The very flawed question. Definitely the logic of the author is not of GMAT level.

Option E: Who told you that women find more attractive younger men? This is an assumption that is not stated in the question. Turn the assumption upside down and it will strengthen the argument - women prefer older men, but they still are chosing the younger.
What does it mean significantly older? What if young men were 10 years old, and significantly older ones were in their 25's? Which is indeed 2.5 times older (significantly older).

Option A: The option is straightforward and made of iron and concrete: there must be other criterias why women find  represented  younger faces attractive (because of modern haircut or pretty color of hair, good tan, bearded/non-bearded, rare eye color etc). In this case facial masculinity has nothing to do with women's choice.

You may kill me but not convince that E has right to exist on this Earth.

praneethuddagiri · Answer

I will go with E. But I feel that we are assuming that Older Men faces are not attractive compared with faces of Younger Men.

prashant6923 · Answer

An ambiguous question.E doesn't stand to be the answer.How could one bring age factor when it is no where related?

MPRS22 · Answer

VeritasKarishma

We can say wait a minute. It's not that women prefer men with feminine faces. Actually they are not even looking at faces when deciding and there is another criterion which by chance makes all men with feminine faces be in the same group. It is entirely possible that despite being older they simply don't look attractive.

A

KarishmaB · Answer

The argument links "facial feature attractiveness" to "prefer the man".

Whether a man's face is more or less attractive may have no bearing on whether the man is more or less attractive to the woman. 
Then, whether the man is more or less attractive to a woman may have no bearing on whether the woman "prefers" that man. Official questions are much more careful in their choice of synonyms.

Option (E) brings in an alternative reason for attractiveness - age. So it is relevant.

Option (A) mentions our point 1 above - Whether a man's face is more or less attractive may have no bearing on whether the man is more or less attractive to the woman.

So I wouldn't know what to pick.

Ignore.

VerbalBot · Answer

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In a recent study of responses to visual images, researchers found tha

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