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voodoochild
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Travel Agent: In the book travelling abroad, the author claims that Eu 03 Sep 2012, 10:11
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69% (01:21) correct 31% (01:26) wrong based on 994 sessions

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Travel Agent: In the book travelling abroad, the author claims that European hotels are better designed than American hotels. This claim is justified by a thorough comparison of 25 popular European hotels and 25 popular American hotels. In this comparison, none of the American hotels were as complexly designed as any of the European ones.

The travel agent's argument is most vulnerable to which of the following criticisms?

A. The hotels reviewed by the book may be those that best serve its proposal.
B. Hotels can be judged by other merits besides design
C. The author of the book has written other books favoring European travel.
D. Hotels in other parts of the world may be better designed than those in Europe.
E. Someone who hasn't been to Europe might not appreciate hotel design.


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OA is A - Why? After all, A) supports Travel Agent's argument. Travel agent tends to disagree with the author of the book. How could A) be a criticism of his argument?

I am unsure about all the five answer choices.


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A
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Travel Agent: In the book travelling abroad, the author claims that Eu 03 Sep 2012, 10:32
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voodoochild
Travel Agent: In the book travelling abroad, the author claims that European hotels are better designed than American hotels. This claim is justified by a thorough comparison of 25 populat European hotels and 25 popular American hotels. In this comparison, none of the American hotels were as complexly designed as any of the European ones.

The travel agent's argument is most vulnerable to which of the following criticisms?

a) The hotels reviewed by the book may be those that best serve its proposal.
b) Hotels can be judged by other merits besides design
c) The author of the book has written other books favoring European travel.
d) Hotels in other parts of the world may be better designed than those in Europe.
e) Someone who hasn't been to Europe might not appreciate hotel design.


OA is A - Why? After all, A) supports Travel Agent's argument. Travel agent tends to disagree with the author of the book. How could A) be a criticism of his argument?

I am unsure about all the five answer choices.
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Answer choice A brings a classic flaw in the argument above. It shows that the selection of hotels are biased. It intentionally picked the better designed European Hotels or other way round u can say it picked the worse American hotels for comparison. ie. the selection of hotels are biased.
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Travel Agent: In the book travelling abroad, the author claims that Eu 03 Sep 2012, 21:16
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voodoochild
Travel Agent: In the book travelling abroad, the author claims that European hotels are better designed than American hotels. This claim is justified by a thorough comparison of 25 populat European hotels and 25 popular American hotels. In this comparison, none of the American hotels were as complexly designed as any of the European ones.

The travel agent's argument is most vulnerable to which of the following criticisms?

a) The hotels reviewed by the book may be those that best serve its proposal.
b) Hotels can be judged by other merits besides design
c) The author of the book has written other books favoring European travel.
d) Hotels in other parts of the world may be better designed than those in Europe.
e) Someone who hasn't been to Europe might not appreciate hotel design.


OA is A - Why? After all, A) supports Travel Agent's argument. Travel agent tends to disagree with the author of the book. How could A) be a criticism of his argument?

I am unsure about all the five answer choices.


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Responding to a pm: Why do you feel that the travel agent is disagreeing with the author? The travel agent's argument is the same as the argument of the author. He says that the book claims so and so and the claim is justified by a thorough comparison of so and so etc. I don't see the travel agent disagreeing with the author or being skeptical of the book/author. If anything, the use of the word 'thorough' makes me feel that he is trying to persuade the listener of the author's opinion.
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Travel Agent: In the book travelling abroad, the author claims that Eu 04 Sep 2012, 11:29
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voodoochild
Travel Agent: In the book travelling abroad, the author claims that European hotels are better designed than American hotels. This claim is justified by a thorough comparison of 25 populat European hotels and 25 popular American hotels. In this comparison, none of the American hotels were as complexly designed as any of the European ones.

The travel agent's argument is most vulnerable to which of the following criticisms?

a) The hotels reviewed by the book may be those that best serve its proposal.
b) Hotels can be judged by other merits besides design
c) The author of the book has written other books favoring European travel.
d) Hotels in other parts of the world may be better designed than those in Europe.
e) Someone who hasn't been to Europe might not appreciate hotel design.


OA is A - Why? After all, A) supports Travel Agent's argument. Travel agent tends to disagree with the author of the book. How could A) be a criticism of his argument?

I am unsure about all the five answer choices.


Thanks

Responding to a pm: Why do you feel that the travel agent is disagreeing with the author? The travel agent's argument is the same as the argument of the author. He says that the book claims so and so and the claim is justified by a thorough comparison of so and so etc. I don't see the travel agent disagreeing with the author or being skeptical of the book/author. If anything, the use of the word 'thorough' makes me feel that he is trying to persuade the listener of the author's opinion.
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Karishma,
Thanks for your reply. The entire article, in my opinion, has a neutral language. The word "thorough" could also imply a neutral analysis about the study.
In fact, after re-reading the prompt, I feel that the agent is not agreeing. (confused :( )
Let's take an example :
Tom: Harry says that British cars are worse than German cars. Harry did a detailed study of 34 cars. The study didn't even consider Mclaren.

What does it tell you? Tom is disagreeing with Harry. Isn't it? In fact, this question appears to be a copy-paste from this gmatprep problem?

The gmatprep question clearly states the stand "In this the book must be right"..I just to make sure that I am not missing anything in this problem. Please let me know your thoughts.
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Travel Agent: In the book travelling abroad, the author claims that Eu 05 Sep 2012, 22:17
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voodoochild


Karishma,
Thanks for your reply. The entire article, in my opinion, has a neutral language. The word "thorough" could also imply a neutral analysis about the study.
In fact, after re-reading the prompt, I feel that the agent is not agreeing. (confused :( )
Let's take an example :
Tom: Harry says that British cars are worse than German cars. Harry did a detailed study of 34 cars. The study didn't even consider Mclaren.

What does it tell you? Tom is disagreeing with Harry. Isn't it? In fact, this question appears to be a copy-paste from this gmatprep problem?

The gmatprep question clearly states the stand "In this the book must be right"..I just to make sure that I am not missing anything in this problem. Please let me know your thoughts.
Show more

I replied to this post yesterday but I cannot see it anywhere today. Anyway, I will give the gist of what I wrote yesterday:

Quote:"Tom: Harry says that British cars are worse than German cars. Harry did a detailed study of 34 cars. The study didn't even consider Mclaren.

What does it tell you? Tom is disagreeing with Harry. Isn't it?"

You are right. I certainly get the feeling that Tom doesn't agree. But this argument does not parallel the original argument.

Quote: "Travel Agent: In the book travelling abroad, the author claims that European hotels are better designed than American hotels. This claim is justified by a thorough comparison of 25 populat European hotels and 25 popular American hotels. In this comparison, none of the American hotels were as complexly designed as any of the European ones. "

The last sentence is a part of the book's conclusion. The author of the book found that none of the American hotels were as complexly designed as any of the European ones and hence, none of the American hotels were as well designed as European ones.
The travel agent is just telling you what the author did and what he found. He is not giving his own input.

Quote: "In fact, this question appears to be a copy-paste from this gmatprep problem"

It is on the same lines, definitely. Actually, we strive to do that so that you can practice "GMAT like questions". Just like in the GMAT prep questions, here too the travel agent is supporting the book even though the stand is not clearly given.
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Travel Agent: In the book travelling abroad, the author claims that Eu 05 Sep 2012, 22:24
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Thanks Karishma

But how do we know that the last sentence is book's conclusion and not agent's conclusion?
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Travel Agent: In the book travelling abroad, the author claims that Eu 05 Sep 2012, 22:46
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getgyan
Thanks Karishma

But how do we know that the last sentence is book's conclusion and not agent's conclusion?
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How will the travel agent know that the American hotels were not as complexly designed as the European ones? Only the author, who has done a thorough comparison, can say it, isn't it?
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Travel Agent: In the book travelling abroad, the author claims that Eu 26 Aug 2018, 18:46
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Can anyone please tell me what is the problem with choice B. The conclusion is American hotels are better than European Hotel and the comparison which is being used here is the complexity . If we can show that there can be other criterion for measuring comparison then the argument gets weakened .
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Travel Agent: In the book travelling abroad, the author claims that Eu 26 Aug 2018, 21:00
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Tanmoy93
Can anyone please tell me what is the problem with choice B. The conclusion is American hotels are better than European Hotel and the comparison which is being used here is the complexity . If we can show that there can be other criterion for measuring comparison then the argument gets weakened .
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Author compares American hotels' design to European hotels' design.
Even if hotels are judged by other merits (i.e. facilities, customer service), the judgement on design isn't affected. Thus, B doesn't weaken travel agent's argument.

This question tests concept of representative sampling, one of the most common argument patterns in CR. Here are the posts you may find useful
Sampling in Official GMAT CR Questions
Frequently Appearing Patterns on the GMAT CR Section with Practice Q

Hope this helps.
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Travel Agent: In the book travelling abroad, the author claims that Eu 27 Aug 2018, 03:45
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Tanmoy93
Can anyone please tell me what is the problem with choice B. The conclusion is American hotels are better than European Hotel and the comparison which is being used here is the complexity . If we can show that there can be other criterion for measuring comparison then the argument gets weakened .
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Tanmoy93

The argument states that the hotels are compared based on design, see this line "the author claims that European hotels are better designed than American hotels". So we don't need to consider other factors as we are only concerned about design.

In this case we are comparing 25 American hotels and 25 European hotels, and what if the selection of hotels is biased? For example, we cannot compare Hilton in Europe to some ABC hotel in America which is probably a 3 Start hotel.
So option A states, "The hotels reviewed by the book may be those that best serve its proposal." which will definitely break the authors claim that none of the American hotels were as complexly designed as any of the European ones because the comparison is not fair.

Hope this helps.
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Travel Agent: In the book travelling abroad, the author claims that Eu 14 Nov 2025, 11:04
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