Franklin: The only clue I have as to the identity of the practical jok

Question

Franklin: The only clue I have as to the identity of the practical joker is the handwriting on the note. Ordinarily I would suspect Miller, who has always been jealous of me, but the handwriting is not hers. So the joker is apparently someone else.

Which one of the following provides the strongest grounds for criticizing Franklin’s reasoning?

(A) It fails to consider the possibility that there was more than one practical joker.

(B) It fails to indicate the degree to which handwriting samples should look alike in order to be considered of the same source.

(C) It provides no explanation for why Miller should be the prime suspect.

(D) It provides no explanation for why only one piece of evidence was obtained.

(E) It takes for granted that if the handwriting on the note had been Miller’s, then the identity of the joker would have been ascertained to be Miller.

ada453 · Accepted Answer

I would consider this a weaken question, honestly. We need to find the gap in logic, since we are asked to criticize Franklin's reasoning.

(A) It fails to consider the possibility that there was more than one practical joker.
IMO Correct - multiple people could have played the prank, and we don't know what the prank was. It could have been multi-faceted with a note and something else. Miller could have designed the prank and then had someone else execute it.

(B) It fails to indicate the degree to which handwriting samples should look alike in order to be considered of the same source.

The premise "the handwriting was not hers" is pretty black and white. If the premise instead said, "the handwriting does not appear to be hers," then this could work. Eliminate

(C) It provides no explanation for why Miller should be the prime suspect.
False - it says that she "has always been jealous of me." Eliminate

(D) It provides no explanation for why only one piece of evidence was obtained.
Out of scope - the argument doesn't say you need multiple pieces of evidence to determine who is the culprit

(E) It takes for granted that if the handwriting on the note had been Miller's, then the identity of the joker would have been ascertained to be Miller.
Who else could have Miller's handwriting other than Miller? Assuming someone falsified her handwriting would be out of scope and would hijack the conclusion.

Pavithra97 · Answer

Franklin: The only clue I have as to the identity of the practical joker is the handwriting on the note. Ordinarily I would suspect Miller, who has always been jealous of me, but the handwriting is not hers. So the joker is apparently someone else.

Which one of the following provides the strongest grounds for criticizing Franklin???s reasoning?

(A) It fails to consider the possibility that there was more than one practical joker.

(B) It fails to indicate the degree to which handwriting samples should look alike in order to be considered of the same source.

(C) It provides no explanation for why Miller should be the prime suspect.

(D) It provides no explanation for why only one piece of evidence was obtained.

(E) It takes for granted that if the handwriting on the note had been Miller???s, then the identity of the joker would have been ascertained to be Miller.

gmatzpractice · Answer

Wat? i donut get it 
Someone watered my plants. Miller did not water my plants because he was not at my house. 
Criticize the reasoning - maybe more than 1 person watered my plants.

shubham2312 · Answer

Hi kindly provide official explanation of the solution.
because IMO OA should have been E

sharathnair14 · Answer

Can't get over the fact that E is WRONG! 
How would considering that somebody could easily have forged Miller's signature be OUT OF SCOPE?
Sure, the Conclusion says it isn't Miller, but how can you rule out the fact that it takes for granted the possibility of somebody could forge a signature?

sharathnair14 · Answer

Calling  GMATNinja   carcass   egmat   mikemcgarry  to answer! 
We need your help!

E seems like the right answer (and obviously, a GMAT CR Trap!) but why A though too, please!

sharathnair14 · Answer

This question needs an Expert !
 GMATNinja   gmat1393   GMATNinja Two  nightblade354

sharathnair14 · Answer

I think this Question needs a statement that best criticizes the argument. 
Stronger the criticism, likelier the option is correct.

Between A & E, I initially thought that E was the answer because it does seem as though the author takes for granted that handwriting cannot be forged. And in the absence of a better choice, this would be the right answer.

A, I feel must be the better choice because the author is convinced that the prankster was Miller. Just because she is jealous, she is suspected. But, to the surprise of the author, the prankster is APPARENTLY someone else. The word Apparent, in my opinion, is key here. This shows that the author was indeed not expecting the prankster to be someone else. In the author's ideal world, the prankster is one and only one person, just because of the Jealousy.

Its like one of those climax scenes in the movies. The lead character is trying to solve a mystery, and is convinced that the culprit is his nemesis/enemy, WHY? Because of the rivalry/hate/jealousy, which is by NO means a piece of reliable evidence. But, the character then finds out the culprit isn't the nemesis to his/her surprise, because of solid evidence found in the form of a weapon used to attack the victim that belongs to someone else. The criticism of the character's thought would be that he/she only assumed the culprit to be the nemesis until he/she found evidence that suggested otherwise, to his/her surprise. 
I apologize that I couldn't find a movie's climax that accurately depicts this, but I'm sure you get the point.

nightblade354 · Answer

This is a classic LSAT trick that plays on conditionality. For those who got this wrong and are stumped, know that this is not only above and beyond the GMAT, but is a decently challenging question for most LSAT takers.

(E) is wrong because it is a reverse of our claim. The statement in our argument says: Not M’s hand writing —> Not M.

Option (E) says: M’s handwriting —> M.

The proper negation of the argument is: M —> M’s handwriting. You simply reverse the signs and placement of the conditions. (E) keeps them in the same place, but reversed the signs. This is a mistaken negation, and that is why although it sounds correct, it is 100% wrong. Here is an example: If Jack goes to the party, then Ben goes to the party. If I say Jack isn’t going, we cannot say that Ben isn’t going. We just know that the condition that required him to go no longer exists. Ben is free to do whatever he wants. But the argument says that this is proof that if Jack doesn’t go, then Ben doesn’t go.

(A) is correct for the reason that you probably thought (E) was correct. The argument just says we have the handwriting. But isn’t that flimsy evidence? Couldn’t it be that there were two pranksters and one wrote the note while the other did the prank? Couldn’t it be that someone is trying to frame Miller? Both of these situations weaken the argument.

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prakhar992 · Answer

i go this question right because i watch impractical jokers.

Thekingmaker · Answer

yeah it was fairly obvious that the handwriting was the key to solving the problem
A- yes it's possiblity that the note was written by someonelse and prank played by Miller 
B- however the handwriting could have been varied maybe it was a bold handwriting fairly distinctive 
C-it does provide premise that Miller was jealous
D- there was only one evidence so nothing could be done 
E- Yes it would have or not it's not certain probably however it stated that the suspicions just might increase

therefore IMO A

bidskamikaze · Answer

Option A is written in such a manner that we tend to label it as incorrect in the first go.
Option E is a trap answer. The author NEVER indicates that if the handwriting on the note had been Miller’s, then the identity of the joker would have been ascertained to be Miller. All author says is that since the handwriting is not Miller's, Miller is ruled out.
But there may be more than one Jokers! Miller might have made someone else write the note!

A is the correct answer.

AlexTheTrainer · Answer

(E) is a very tricky wrong answer. “Takes for granted” can be rephrased as “believe”.

Does the author BELIEVE that “if the handwriting on the note had been Miller’s, then the identity of the joker would have been ascertained to be Miller?” NOPE!

All we know about the authors belief in this situation is where the hand writing on the note had NOT been Miller’s.

How do we know this for sure? The answer involves a type of logic that according to those who study the history of logic, wasn’t understood until about 130 years ago.

A basic paraphrase of the original argument: IF the handwriting was not Miller’s THEN the joker must have been someone else.

This if/then structure can be called formal logic, with some interesting “rules”.

We know that IF it rains THEN the ground is wet. So which of the following is a logical deduction from this statement?

If the ground is wet then it rains. NOPE

If it does not rain then the ground is not wet. NOPE

If the ground is not wet, then it’s not raining. YUP

The last sentence above is known as the contrapositive, which is the only deduction that could be made from a conditional (if/then) statement. Anything else is NOT inferable from an if/then statement.

NOTE: some conditional statements, known as the biconditional, can go in the “opposite direction”. These are essentially definitions.

For example: IF I’m outside THEN I’m not inside (by definition). Thus all of the following are logical deductions from the statement/definition:

IF I’m not inside, THEN I’m outside.

IF I’m not outside, THEN I’m inside.

IF I’m inside THEN I’m not outside.

For those of you struggling with this concept, you’re in good company. Mathematicians like Euclid & Fermat and philosophers like Aristotle & Descartes were apparently clueless about this type of logic.

In the end, for E, best to ask: does the author believe this to be true? NOPE.

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sayan640 · Answer

MartyMurray  would you like to explain why E is wrong? and A is right?

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Franklin: The only clue I have as to the identity of the practical jok

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Franklin: The only clue I have as to the identity of the practical jok

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