Professional baseball analysts have concluded that no major league pla

Question

Professional baseball analysts have concluded that no major league player will hit .400 over the course of a season again, that is, successfully reach base in 40% of the player’s at-bats by hitting the ball. Their point is bolstered by statistics: no player has done so in almost eighty years, and the underlying data shows a sharp decline in average contact percentage—the percentage of times that players hit the ball at all. However, their conclusion is flawed because it ignores a similarly sharp recent increase in the number of home runs, balls hit over the fence surrounding the field.

Which of the following is an assumption on which the argument depends?

A. Contact percentage is not a useful predictor of batting average.
 
B. An increase in home runs correlates with reaching base more often by hitting the ball. 
 
C. Home run numbers are the best predictor of batting average.
 
D. Future baseball stadiums will not have larger playing fields.
 
E. Many of these professional analysts’ other claims have recently been disproven

CrackverbalGMAT · Answer

The right answer here is  B . The trap to look out for here, is that the conclusion is NOT what the baseball analysts think. Rather, it is the conclusion that the analysts are INCORRECT, and that a .400 is possible. So we need to find a statement which suggests that reaching base often is possible/likely.

A  - This doesn't necessarily refute the analysts' prediction. The baseline we have is STILL that .400 has never happened.  OUT

B  - This actually does help us, since there has been an increase in home runs. This makes it more likely that people will get on base at a .400 average.

C  - Batting average of what? Is getting on base the average? This is unclear.  OUT

D  - We don't KNOW that stadium size affects average. This makes sense wrt common sense, but we dont know it from the info given.  OUT

E  - How the other claims have turned out gives us no indication of how this one will.  OUT

- Matoo

QuabityAssurance · Answer

I have a very basic question. By definition, the Argument consists of both the conclusion and the premise.

I selected option D thinking that the assumption is for the whole argument and not just the conclusion.

Now Analyst thinks that 400 average cannot be reached and the conclusion is that Home runs might be able to reach that number. However, both the premise and conclusion are true only if the size of baseball field remains the same.

Please suggest where did I go wrong

vivek1810971 · Answer

Hi,

The argument tries to confuse us by relating two different statistics.

First, it says that only 40% of the players hits (hitting the ball by the bat) reach base.
Second, it says that % of hits are declining. (i.e. the number of times the player makes contact between the bat and the ball is declining)

Lets boil down to simple math.

Consider that 200 bowls were bowled. ( i am not aware of the terminologies of baseball, so referring to cricket🏏)

Bowls bowled : 200
Bowls hit: 100 (i.e. no of times the player made contact between the bat and the ball)
Bowls hit to base: 40 (40%) (i.e. out of 100 times that the player made contact between bat and the ball, 40 times he hit the 
 ball to base)  (a 4 (boundary) in terms of cricket)

Now the argument goes to say that there is a sharp rise in the number of home runs (i.e. the number of times the ball was hit over the fence  (sixer in terms of cricket)

Further the argument also says the number of times the player actually made contact is declining. In our case, initially player was making 50% contact (100 out of 200). Now this percentage is declining. (i.e. 80 times out of 200, 40% only).

But the argument doesn't say that the number of times the player hits the ball to the base is also declining. maybe the player still hits 40% of the times he makes contact to base.

Clearly, option B says this. Option B says that an increase in home runs, that is player hitting the ball over the fence also counts towards the player hitting the ball to base.

siddhantvarma · Answer

The baseball terminologies really threw me off here and from that point onwards, it was a complete downhill. After carefully reviewing this question, it finally made sense to me. First, I did not know the meaning of the word " bolstered" and thought the opposite, maybe evidence is weakening the analyst's conclusion. Eventually reading the whole thing made sense that "bolstered" means to support/strengthen, instead. This did lead to a shaky confidence and some lost time regardless.

If you approach this question thinking you know nothing about baseball and that's completely fine, you'll crack it very easily. However, if you try to make sense of the baseball terminologies, you'll start introducing factors and assumptions of our own. Typical GMAT questions like this will never need you to know a dime about baseball so we'll approach this question with that in mind.

There's an analyst's claim and then there is the argument's claim. Let's understand both.

Analyst : No player will hit 0.4 or reach base 40% of the times. This means no player will hit the ball 40 times out of 100 and reach the base (Again, don't know what this means but it isn't important). 
 Stats/Evidence in support of Analyst :  no player has done so in almost eighty years, and the underlying data shows a sharp decline in average contact percentage—the percentage of times that player hits the ball at all.

Argument : There's a recent increase in the number of home runs which means that the player can hit the ball and reach the base.

For the argument to hold, it must assume that the increase in home runs  somehow contributes to a player's ability to reach a .400 mark . In other words, there must be a connection between  hitting more home runs  and a player's  reaching the base 40% of the times  or r eaching the .400 mark .

Looking at the options, right of the bat (pun intended)   we can eliminate (D) and (E).   You can do so by just seeing their irrelevant to the argument or use the negation technique to see if it breaks the conclusion. If you're applying the negation technique, remember, the conclusion here is "Player will reach reach base 40% times" so breaking it means "No player will reach base 40% of times". In other words, breaking the conclusion means  supporting  the  Analyst's claim .

Okay, now that (D) and (E) are out, let's look at (A), (B) and (C).

A. Contact percentage is not a useful predictor of batting average. 
Batting average, wait, what's that? Is 0.400 a batting average? Sure, it might be. But I really don't know and the GMAT would mention it. I'd have to assume that 0.400 is a batting average.   That's how I can quickly eliminate (A).

Let's say 0.400 is actually a batting average. (A) weakens the analysts' conclusion on negation "Contact percentage is a useful predictor of batting average." => Evidence cited by the Analyst is useful. However, it does not directly support the counterargument about home runs impacting the likelihood of hitting .400. So while it weakens the evidence, it doesn't directly weaken the conclusion.   Eliminate (A).

Hence, either way you can eliminate (A) easily.

B. An increase in home runs correlates with reaching base more often by hitting the ball. 
If you negate this, you get "An increase in home runs does not correlate with reaching base more often by hitting the ball. "  This weakens the conclusion directly by attacking the evidence cited by the argument. Remember, in this case the evidence cited by the argument is the only way the argument's conclusion holds. Moreover, if an increase in home runs means that players are reaching base more often, this directly challenges the analysts' conclusion. The argument hinges on the assumption that home runs can positively affect the likelihood of reaching base 40% times.   Let's hold onto B.

C. Home run numbers are the best predictor of batting average. 
Oh no, batting average again, I can eliminate (C) quickly on these grounds. But let's say I don't. 
(C) also breaks the conclusion if you negate it, "Home run numbers are not the best predictor of batting average". However, we don;t the exact relation between number of home runs and batting average. Even then, the argument only needs to show that home runs could  contribute  to hitting the base 40% of the times or a 0.400 batting average, not that they are the single most important factor. It's an unnecessary stretch.   We can eliminate (C).

(B) is the correct answer.

Professional baseball analysts have concluded that no major league pla

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