More citizens of Alphaville tune in to nightly news programs

Question

More citizens of Alphaville tune in to nightly news programs than do citizens of Bentonville. Thus, citizens of Alphaville know more about global issues than do citizens of Bentonville.

The conclusion to the left is weakened by all of the following EXCEPT:

A The population of Alphaville is 2,000,000; the population of Bentonville is 1,000,000.

B Citizens of Bentonville are more likely to listen to news radio programs than are citizens of Alphaville.

c. Citizens of Alphaville generally put the television on as background noise during dinner and chores, while citizens of Bentonville never watch television unless they are paying full attention to it.

d. The nightly news programs in Alphaville are restricted to tabloid coverage of celebrities.

e. Citizens in Bentonville can view nightly news programs only by purchasing cable television access.

adishail · Answer

Used POE to reach to the correct choice. Pay attention to the question - the right choice should not be weakening the conclusion

A - Irrelevant.

B - Weakens the conclusion that Alphaville is smarter coz ppl from Bentonville can gain awareness by listening to more radio.

C - Weakens the conclusion that Alphaville is smarter coz even when the television is ON, they are not paying attention

D -Weakens the conclusion that Alphaville is smarter coz even though they watch more but the television shows stuff not relevant to global awareness.

E -

As the correct choice, E is not weakening. Does not mean that it is strengthening either !!!!!!!!!!! It is neutral.

Can be treated as additional info that helps the premises that less people from Bentonville watch TV coz they need to pay for it. Hence, helping the conclusion and not harming it.

onedayill · Answer

I'm between B and E.

Can some please explain?

shaselai · Answer

E. is basically reducing the "customer base" of B ville with the additional tv restriction so it will not weaken the statement.

B. is saying there is another way for Bville to gain info thus it "increases" news input thus weakens conclusion

gautrang · Answer

How about A? A doesn't weeken either.

navami · Answer

E strengthens but, A neither strengthens nor weakens then How can we choose E?

gurpreetsingh · Answer

More citizens of Alphaville tune in to nightly news programs than do citizens of Bentonville. Thus, citizens of Alphaville know more about global issues than do citizens of Bentonville.

this will be valid only when %age of Alphaville citizens who tune in is greater than that of bentonville.
More does not mean greater %age.

Since population of alpha is greater than bento, the conclusion is weakend.

Eg. out of 2,000,000 citizens of alpha 900,000 citizens tune in. => 45%
where as in bento out of 1,000,000 , 800,000 citizens tune in => 80%

This hurts the conclusion.

Dreamy · Answer

Gurpreet, Doesn't the conclusion just talk about more knowledge vs more people knowing it.

Both A and E seems to be close. This might not be a og question.

gurpreetsingh · Answer

They have talked about numbers only and on the basis of number they have made the conclusion.

pls read the post again for better understanding.

Suppose there are two colleges A and B with student strength of 200 and 100 resp.

out of 200 in A 100 have passed, and out of 100 in B 90 have passed.

Since number of students passed A > B, can you conclude A is better college?

Since the % of students passed at A (50%) < at B (90%) , the conclusion is weaken.

If you have access to CR bible, consider revising the number percentage chapter.

Let me know if you are still confused.

nishatfarhat87 · Answer

I am still not satisfied with the solution coz when the argument says more citizens of A tune in than B, then the argument isn't comparing percentage rather it is checking the absolute number of people. So, how can we assume that we are talking percentage. And even if we say percentage we don't know where do A and B stand wrt percentages of ppl tuning into the nightly news. So, how are we saying that this is weakening the conclusion that A is more aware than B. Please suggest.

Shawnik · Answer

shaselai   gurpreetsingh

the conclusion is that  citizens of Alphaville know more about global issues than do citizens of Bentonville. 
for option E to be true, one has to assume that there is no other source to get news update. There can be other sources from which people can get free information. So why is Choice E correct.

Choice A on the other hand is not a weakener. It is irrelevant information so that must be correct information.

I believe it must be A

manhasnoname · Answer

Is something wrong with the question?

(A) & (E) both seem to not weaken the conclusion. Why is (A) incorrect?

guialain · Answer

Why is A not correct?

I went through the posts related to this question but i am not really convinced.
What is the source of this question?

godot53 · Answer

Whenever an explanation is made of a finding/phenomenon - the assumption is that there are no other explanations that could explain the finding/phenomenon. Answer choice A presents a data that shows why more people are viewing the news item in city A than city B. In doing so, this makes the explanation (=conclusion) less likely to be true. Another way to look at this argument is representative sampling : https://www.kaptest.com/blog/business-sc ... ing-cases/ Whenever a comparison is made, the inherent assumption that there can be no difference between city A and city B - except people in city A watching more news program than people in city B – so, the explanation stands to explain “the” difference. If we can show any other differences between city A and B, then the explanations/inferences presented is less likely to be valid. In whatever way you consider the argument, A works very well !!

DishaAgarwal12 · Answer

I feeel this is a low quality question and should be removed. The % calculation is not accurate to not choose A,
What if A is 50% and B is 10%, the conclusion is not weakened then

miag · Answer

Hi,

Thank you for the feedback on the question - we are reviewing and discussing this internally!

More citizens of Alphaville tune in to nightly news programs

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