Mayor: In each of the past five years, the city has cut school funding

Question

Mayor: In each of the past five years, the city has cut school funding and each time school officials complained that the cuts would force them to reduce expenditures for essential services. But each time, only expenditures for nonessential services were actually reduced. So school officials can implement further cuts without reducing any expenditures for essential services.

Which of the following, if true, most strongly supports the mayor’s conclusion?

(A) The city’s schools have always provided essential services as efficiently as they have provided nonessential services.

(B) Sufficient funds are currently available to allow the city’s schools to provide some nonessential services.

(C) Price estimates quoted to the city’s schools for the provision of nonessential services have not increased substantially since the most recent school funding cut.

(D) Few influential city administrators support the funding of costly nonessential services in the city’s schools.

(E) The city’s school officials rarely exaggerate the potential impact of threatened funding cuts.

GMATNinja · Accepted Answer

The conclusion of the Mayor's argument is that  school officials can implement further cuts without reducing  any  expenditures for  essential services.   Let's break down how the Mayor reaches this conclusion:

Five years ago, the city cut school funding. 
  School officials complained that this cut would force them to reduce expenditures for essential services. But when the cut was made, only expenditures for nonessential services were reduced. 
  This process (city cut funding, school officials complained, school officials reduced expenditures only for nonessential services) repeated for four more years. 
  Therefore, today, school officials can cut further without reducing any expenditures for essential services.

This logic literally isn't adding up. Just because something happened previously doesn't mean that it will happen again in the future! What we really care about is what's going to happen next, and we need the following information to accept the mayor's conclusion:

How much money the schools have  now  for essential services and nonessential services. 
  How much it will cost to provide essential services and nonessential services  when the next cut takes place .

So let's look for the answer choice that most fills in these blanks, making us more likely to believe that the next cut can be implemented without any reduction in essential expenditures.

The schools' efficiency in providing essential services has nothing to do with whether they have enough money in the bank to avoid cutting expenditures on those services. Choice (A) doesn't provide any information that would fill our logical gap, so let's eliminate it.

This helps out quite a bit! If we know that the schools have money in the bank to provide nonessential services, the we know that some (potentially all) of the next cut can be taken out of these particular funds, instead of being taken out of the funds for essential services.

It would be great to know how big the cut will be, but the conclusion is that school officials can implement  further  cuts, not some specific size of cut. If there are $X in the bank for nonessential services, at least $X can be further cut from overall funding without any reduction in spending on essential services.

Choice (B) doesn't prove the conclusion, but it definitely makes the conclusion easier to believe. Let's keep it around and see if any of the remaining choices are better.

Hm, so choice (C) tells us that the cost of nonessential services isn't much more than it was last year. But how much was it last year? How much is it today? And how does this cost relate to how much funding schools will have after the cut? We still don't have the information we need to assess how the next cut will impact the amount needed for essential services.

As a result, choice (C) doesn't support the mayor's conclusion nearly as much as choice (B), so let's eliminate it and keep going.

The stance of city administrators on these services has nothing to do with how much money the schools have and how much schools need in order to avoid reducing expenditures on those services. Eliminate (D).

The conclusion itself doesn't question the accuracy or honesty of the school officials. The conclusion states that after the next cut, there will be no cuts to expenditures on essential services. Choice (E), like choice (D) and choice (A), doesn't do anything to fill in the gaps that we need to support this conclusion, so we'll eliminate it.

(B) remains the best choice, because it does more than any other choice to make the mayor's conclusion believable.

But between you and me, even if (B) were true, I would never vote for a mayor who is this bad at critical reasoning. Please take these lessons to heart, find success with your MBA, and become a better mayor for your town.

KarishmaB · Answer

Look at the scope of the argument:

The mayor says that in last 5 years, each year schools complained that cuts will force them to cut essential services but funding has been cut and schools have not had to cut essential services. So he says that this year too if they cut funding schools will not need to cut essential services. Basically he is saying that the schools still have some leeway and they can still cut some non essential services if funding is cut.

We need to strengthen it. So we need to show that the school still has some non essential spending so a funding cut can be adjusted there without compromising on essential services. 
Will the spending cut actually happen - we don't care. Who wants the spending cut and who doesn't - we don't care.

We are only concerned about will essential services be cut if a cut happens?
Option (B) tells us that the schools still provide some non essential services. This means there is scope of cutting non essential services and a spending cut may not impact essential services. Correct.

Option (D) says that few admins support the funding of non essential services. So it kind of means that admins do not support the funding of non essential services. Perhaps that is the reason that funding is getting cut every year. But does this help us strengthen that this year if the funding is cut it will not impact essential services? No. This option says nothing about what will happen if funding is cut this year. 
So this option is irrelevant.

AshForGMAT · Answer

IMO ...B

If the non essential services have substancial funds then certainly the schools can dip into the non-essential funds instead of reducing any of the essential services.

lys8207 · Answer

Og11 Cr-9
Mayor : In each of the past five years, the city has cut school funding and each time school officials complained that the cuts would force them to reduce expenditures for essential services. But each time, only expenditures for nonessential services were actually reduced. So school officials can implement further cuts without reducing any expenditures for essential services.

Which of the following , if true, most strongly supports the mayor's conclusion?

(A)The city's schools have always provided essential services as efficiently as they have provided non essential services.
(B) Sufficient funds are currently available to allow the city's schools to provide some nonessential services.
(C) Price estimates quoted to the city's schools for the provision of non essential services have not increased substantially since the most recent school-funding cut.
(D) Few influential city administrators support the funding of costly nonessential services in the city's schools.
(E) The city's school officials rarely exaggerate the potential impact of the threatened funding cuts.

I post this question for asking another thing

Do you guys think that the answer choice C can be an assumption for this argument?

I am confused b/w assumption and strength

.

amp0201 · Answer

Answer is B.

Mayor's conclusion is - So school officials can implement further cuts without reducing any expenditures for essential services. Thus cuts can be made from non-essential expenditures. Thus it implies that still there are sufficient funds available for non-essentials services.

Thus Mayor's conclusion is solely based on the fact that there are still sufficient funds for non-essential services which can be cut without affecting essentials services.

OA please. Thanks.

jeeteshsingh · Answer

Answer is B....

For strengthing question.... just concentrate on the Conclusion.... "So school officials can implement further cuts without reducing any expenditures for essential services." and see which statement can make this conclusion more strong! Even u wld choose B..

BarneyStinson · Answer

PowerScore states that Assumption is an unstated premise. Typically in question stimulus that require you to identify an assumption, premise will discuss about something, but the conclusion will take you to an entirely different arena. There is something stated and there is something totally new that is concluded. An assumption will help you bridge that gap.

Strengthen or weaken questions on the other hand will attack the conclusion. Typically they are unstated premises as well, but most often they are additional by nature. Identifying an answer option that goes hand-in-hand with the given premises in the stimulus is very easy to identify, so the test-makers will often try to bring in new or extra information that will have a direct impact on the conclusion, that is what makes the correct answers as additional premises. However, it does not mean that assumptions cannot strengthen.

The answer options will be formulated based on the question stem posed, so you need not worry about what is not asked. There is also not sufficient time to ponder over such aspects of the question. Just stay focussed on what is asked and try and eliminate what seems wrong.

sushma0805 · Answer

ans B.

the conclusion "So school officials can implement further cuts without reducing any expenditures for essential services." can be strengthened,if there are extra funds left for NON-essential services.in that case,further cut to school fundings can be implemented,and "only expenditures for NON-essential services will be reduced" as it has been done for the pst 5 yrs by school officials.

Indien · Answer

B it is.

Though I I did not do it, but you can try this personalize method. Assume yourself as a mayor and if given the evidence that there are sufficient funds for non-essential services, wouldn't you make the same argument?
Just an idea, if it helps.

holidevil · Answer

I agree with the correct answer choice to be B. 
My question is more about handling the other choice, E. It says that school officials don't exaggerate the potential impact of cuts. This is contrary to the passage that says that the officials complained of cuts in essential services. Such cuts were never required. Only cuts in non-essential services were taken up. This clearly shows that the officials were not sure of their claims and were making false claims of their abilities. The OG mentions that this point weakens the argument. Does it weaken the argument by pointing a flaw or questioning the premise of the argument? Kindly explain how does it weaken.
I know that we could easily take this option out but was curious to know the reasoning nonetheless.
Thanks.

chesstitans · Answer

I am worrying about the mix questions. Until now, for a mixing question, I will subjectively choose one type of the question, and deal with that type. Normally, the type will be chosen based on what is stated in the question.

I stop worrying about mixing questions now because mix questions are rare. 
Even if knowing that a question is a mixing one will help me to find the right answer in an easier way, I will not go for a complex method.

The advice is just to choose the option that best fits the question and the passage.

Probus · Answer

Hi egmat ,

Well i did attend a session of yours on pre-thinking,and really liked it.

Using the learning of the sessions , i decided to come up for an assumption for every question type ( esp Strengthener and Weakener) and its really working though i am not 100% correct always. But most of the answers that i mark correct are because i was able to come up with an assumption in each question. PLus it gives me a good practice if that question asked for assumption.

When i tried to attempt this question i was taken back and wanted to correct at this stage of learning my process of making assumption in an argument.

So let me try to explain how i attempted this question, which might help you understand the gap in my approach.

Argument Evaluation: 
City has cut funding for a certain school ( every year in the past 5 years) 
Every time school management raised a alarm stating that this cut in funding would force them to reduce expenses for essential services.

However its was observed that each time funding was cut , they did not reduce the expenses for essential services but rather reduced expenses for non -essential services .

On this basis author is concluding that hey school management can take another cut in funding without reducing the expenses for essential services.

So main conclusion is School officials can implement further cuts without reducing any expenditures for essential services.

falsification Conditions:
Under which circumstances the management cannot implement further cuts without reducing any expenditures for essential services."
Given that
In past every time cut was enforced they cut down their expenses for non essential services

What if they don't have any further scope of reducing the expenses for non essential services if they have to provide these services effectively.

So assumption is : Hey Schools still have some scope of cutting revenues for non-essential services to provide them effectively.

Also,

Lets say each time in last 5 years there was cut in funding , school required the services providers of non essential services to lower the prices. And this helped them to implement the cut each time without effecting the essential services.

Now this time since service providers have already been lowering the prices for last 5 years, they will not be further able to lower the prices for services of essential services. 
This breaks the conclusion. 
So assumption is ' the cost of providing non-essential services can be lowered to provide for these services effectively"

So my question is 
Can we call Option C a assumption. ( i am not sure) but i think no.

Price estimates quoted to the city's schools for the provision of non essential services have not increased substantially since the most recent school-funding cut.

even if the cost of providing services haven't increased , we don't know if the school has the budget even to pay for the prices that were in effect since last cut.

I am not convinced by reasoning. 
Can you help me resolve my ambiguity.

Probus

rish2708 · Answer

Hi  Probus  ,

Not sure whether it would help you or not, but option C is not an assumption.
Two reasons for that:
i) had it been an assumption, it would have been a NECESSARY premise thus in a way strengthener to the argument and we can't have two strengtheners in same question.

ii) Actually this option says that the funds QUOTED for the NE ( Non essential) services are relatively same. This means that they are same from last year. We do not know what the prices were last year. So nothing much can be said.

Rather I would go on saying that option C could QUALIFY as possible weakener. It's because we know from the statements that ALREADY many non-essential services are cut off and if the funds remain same and there is no INCREASE in their funds and the staff is inclined to cut off SOME services, it's likely they cut off ESSENTIAL services.

How I say this?
Negating option C says that NE services quotation has increased substantially. This simply means that they could cut off NE services. So in a way NEGATION STRENGTHENS the argument.
So option C as is would QUALIFY as a possible weakener, albeit feeble weakener.

Regards,
Rishav

KarishmaB · Answer

Every time there was a funding cut, only nonessential services expenditures were reduced.

Conclusion: School officials can implement further cuts without reducing any expenditures for essential services.

This would work if there are non essential expenditures to cut. If all expenditure right now is only essential expenditure, further expenditure cut will reduce essential expenditure only.

So what will support the conclusion?

(A) The city’s schools have always provided essential services as efficiently as they have provided nonessential services.

Irrelevant what they have done till now.

(B) Sufficient funds are currently available to allow the city’s schools to provide some nonessential services.

There are some funds getting diverted to nonessential services right now. So if funding gets cut, essential services could still be maintained. This does strengthen our conclusion. How much would be the cut and whether it will dip into only non-essential services is besides the point. We don't have to prove the conclusion. We have to only strengthen it.

(C) Price estimates quoted to the city’s schools for the provision of nonessential services have not increased substantially since the most recent school funding cut.

Irrelevant.

(D) Few influential city administrators support the funding of costly nonessential services in the city’s schools.

"Few" means "almost none". So city admins do not support funding nonessential services. That could be the reason why they cut funds. But we need to focus on whether cutting funds will still allow expenditure for essentials.

(E) The city’s school officials rarely exaggerate the potential impact of threatened funding cuts.

This is against our premises.

Answer (B)

hrishi760 · Answer

Can you explain why D is wrong?
Can't it mean that the administrators are funding the non-essential and therefore it is fine to cut the costs further?

mSKR · Answer

(D) Few influential city administrators support the funding of costly nonessential services in the city’s schools.
Ok if few influential city administrators support the funding of costly non essential services then still there is some gap that school officials may not implement further cuts without reducing any expenditures for essential services.
Now we have extra no information that can make us sure that whatever money they get from FEW influential city admins for COSTLY nonessential services would be enough. It's an open discussion this claim may or may not help. 
We can also open a new discussion point that maybe this support is temporary and only for this year. Then what about NEXT year? 
The conclusion is FURTHER CUTS, not just one time cuts.

But if you look at 
(B) Sufficient funds are currently available to allow the city’s schools to provide some nonessential services.

It clearly shows you have money for nonessential services( see in D option we are still evaluating whether we have that sufficient funds) .

You know the question:

Which of the following, if true,  most strongly  supports the mayor’s conclusion?

So undoubtedly B wins over D.

I hope your doubt is cleared.

JuccGMAT · Answer

Conclusion:-So school officials can implement further cuts without reducing any expenditures for essential services.

We need to look into the information that is not stated in the Argument and that doesn't break the argument's conclusion.
  i.e. School official should really able to reduce the expenditures for nonessential services because to further reduce the expenditure, one must verify if the sufficient funds are available for the nonessential services after the last cut.

Choice B is the perfect match.

waytowharton · Answer

KarishmaB   GMATNinja 
Why is option D incorrect?
My understanding of Option D –
Few(let us take 1) influential city administrators support(aid/assist) the funding of costly nonessential services in the city’s schools. Okay, then we can implement further cuts because those funds(even if limited) for non-essential services could be used for essential services. Hence, strengthens Mayor’s conclusion.

Please let me know where I am going wrong.

Kratosgmat · Answer

Sufficient funds are still available for non essential services so we can afford to cut them. Option B

Mayor: In each of the past five years, the city has cut school funding

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Mayor: In each of the past five years, the city has cut school funding

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