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705-805 (Hard)|   Weaken|      
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ajaym28
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Ever since I arrived at the college last week, I've been shocked by th 02 Dec 2014, 11:00
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75% (hard)

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38% (01:11) correct 62% (01:23) wrong based on 740 sessions

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Ever since I arrived at the college last week, I've been shocked by the poor behavior of the students. The student population is completely lacking in proper social skills.
Which of the following, if true, would weaken the above conclusion?

A) Students who are away from their parents often exhibit rude behavior.
B) The college numbers over 50,000 students.
C) The narrator is a student and has interacted with many students.
D) Social skills should not be expected of college students.
E) The narrator was reluctant to stay at the college.
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B
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Ever since I arrived at the college last week, I've been shocked by th 06 Jun 2015, 07:09
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ajaym28
Ever since I arrived at the college last week, I've been shocked by the poor behavior of the students. The student population is completely lacking in proper social skills.
Which of the following, if true, would weaken the above conclusion?

A) Students who are away from their parents often exhibit rude behavior.
B) The college numbers over 50,000 students.
C) The narrator is a student and has interacted with many students.
D) Social skills should not be expected of college students.
E) The narrator was reluctant to stay at the college.
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Hi ajaym28, I chose A because, assumption is that students demonstrate poor behaviour in social environment. But when option A is negated, then it means students don't demonstrate the poor behaviour in more social environment hence they don't lack in social skills.

Can you pse post the OE and the source of the Q
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Ever since I arrived at the college last week, I've been shocked by th 06 Jun 2015, 07:27
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ajaym28
Ever since I arrived at the college last week, I've been shocked by the poor behavior of the students. The student population is completely lacking in proper social skills.
Which of the following, if true, would weaken the above conclusion?

A) Students who are away from their parents often exhibit rude behavior.
B) The college numbers over 50,000 students.
C) The narrator is a student and has interacted with many students.
D) Social skills should not be expected of college students.
E) The narrator was reluctant to stay at the college.


Hi ajaym28, I chose A because, assumption is that students demonstrate poor behaviour in social environment. But when option A is negated, then it means students don't demonstrate the poor behaviour in more social environment hence they don't lack in social skills.

Can you pse post the OE and the source of the Q
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Hi,
assumpption A cannot be correct answer as we are not debating reason for being rude. but we have to weaken the conclusion that the student population completely lacks social ethos. B is the closest when it sys that 50000 students are there and one week stay is too less to interact with all these people and make a statement for all of them...
catch word is completely
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Ever since I arrived at the college last week, I've been shocked by th 05 Jul 2019, 00:15
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SandyNik
ajaym28
Ever since I arrived at the college last week, I've been shocked by the poor behavior of the students. The student population is completely lacking in proper social skills.
Which of the following, if true, would weaken the above conclusion?

A) Students who are away from their parents often exhibit rude behavior.
B) The college numbers over 50,000 students.
C) The narrator is a student and has interacted with many students.
D) Social skills should not be expected of college students.
E) The narrator was reluctant to stay at the college.


Hi ajaym28, I chose A because, assumption is that students demonstrate poor behaviour in social environment. But when option A is negated, then it means students don't demonstrate the poor behaviour in more social environment hence they don't lack in social skills.

Can you pse post the OE and the source of the Q

Hi,
assumpption A cannot be correct answer as we are not debating reason for being rude. but we have to weaken the conclusion that the student population completely lacks social ethos. B is the closest when it sys that 50000 students are there and one week stay is too less to interact with all these people and make a statement for all of them...
catch word is completely
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"completely" and generalising by saying" student population" :)
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I went with E since it gives motive for the narrator to generalize even if the population on a whole does not lack social skills.
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I disagree with OA B.
We can't assume that he would not have been able to meet 50,000 students and would have judged all of them.
What if he did get to interact with them in a concert or something?
Basically B requires a strong assumption of our own to be correct.
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Can any of the experts have a look at this problem?
Can you please explain why C is not the correct answer. Also, if we assume that indeed B is the correct answer, why is the question assuming that the student couldn't have met 50k students in a week?

Thank you.
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Ever since I arrived at the college last week, I've been shocked by the poor behavior of the students. The student population is completely lacking in proper social skills.

Which of the following, if true, would weaken the above conclusion?

The narrator generalizes from the students observed during just one week to the entire student population. The best weakener shows that the observed students may represent only a small portion of that population.

(A) Students who are away from their parents often exhibit rude behavior.

Incorrect. This may explain the rude behavior, but it does not show that the narrator's conclusion about the students' social skills is wrong.

(B) The college numbers over 50,000 students.

Correct. With such a large student population, the narrator is unlikely to have observed enough students in one week to justify a conclusion about all of them. This weakens the generalization.

(C) The narrator is a student and has interacted with many students.

Incorrect. This strengthens the argument by suggesting that the narrator's conclusion is based on a larger sample.

(D) Social skills should not be expected of college students.

Incorrect. Whether social skills should be expected does not tell us whether these students actually possess them.

(E) The narrator was reluctant to stay at the college.

Incorrect. The narrator's desire to stay or leave does not address whether the students lack social skills.

Answer: (B)
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mike1122
Can any of the experts have a look at this problem?
Can you please explain why C is not the correct answer. Also, if we assume that indeed B is the correct answer, why is the question assuming that the student couldn't have met 50k students in a week?

Thank you.
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This is not a GMAT-type of question, but if we are looking for the "most suitable" answer, it would be (B).

Think of real world logic. It is highly unlikely that a fresher could have evaluated 50k population of a college in 1 week. But he still goes on to make a generalization about the entire student population - The student population is completely lacking in proper social skills.
So this is a flaw in his reasoning. There is a small chance that he could have observed the entire 50k crowd at a college concert and deduced what he did, but option (B) is the best, most logical option nevertheless.

Option (C) The narrator is a student and has interacted with many students.
It does not weaken the narrator's claim at all. If he is a student, he would have gotten the opportunity to observe other students' behavior up close. If he has interacted with "many" students, it improves his credibility. 'Many' simply means 'a lot'. He could have interacted with all also.


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Hi mike1122,

You're asking two good questions. Let me take them one at a time, because they actually come from the same place.

First, remember what the conclusion is: "The student population is completely lacking in proper social skills" - a sweeping claim about everyone, based on one week of personal observation. That's the weak spot every answer should be measured against.

Why C doesn't weaken it

Choice C says the narrator is a student and has interacted with many students. Look at the direction this pushes: it makes the narrator's observations sound more informed, not less. If anything, it props the conclusion up. To weaken, you need something that makes "the whole population lacks social skills" less believable - and C does the opposite. That's why it's out.

The assumption you're questioning in B

Here's the key idea for CR: weakening doesn't mean disproving. You don't have to show the narrator definitely couldn't have met all 50,000 students. You only have to make the sweeping conclusion harder to justify - and B does exactly that. One person, one week, a population of 50,000: the sample the narrator actually saw is a tiny slice, so declaring the entire population deficient is unsupported.

Your "what if he met them all at a concert?" is the trap to watch. The stimulus never says that - you're importing a scenario the argument doesn't give you. In CR, judge only what's stated. What's stated is: one week, huge population. B uses only those facts to expose the overreach.

Quick gut check on "weaken":
- "This restaurant is terrible - the one dish I tried was cold."
- Which weakens it more: "the reviewer tried many dishes" (like C), or "the menu has 200 dishes" (like B)?

The second one instantly makes the sweeping judgment look shaky - without needing to prove the reviewer tried nothing else. Same move as B here.

Answer: B

mike1122
Can any of the experts have a look at this problem?
Can you please explain why C is not the correct answer. Also, if we assume that indeed B is the correct answer, why is the question assuming that the student couldn't have met 50k students in a week?

Thank you.
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