Mrs. Mason is gifted with psychic powers that enable her to

Question

Mrs. Mason is gifted with psychic powers that enable her to foretell future events. In the past, Mrs. Mason has predicted such actual events as the election of President Clinton, the stock market crash of 1987, and the St. Loius Cardinals' 1982 World Series victory. These are just a few of Mrs. Mason's accurate predictions. The answer to which of the following questions would be most useful in evaluating the strength of the argument above?

A) What percentage of Mrs. Mason's predictions has come true?
B) What percentage of other people predicted the same events that Mrs Mason claims to have foretold?
C) What is the actual mechanism by which Mrs. Mason's psychic powers are supposed to operate?
D) Are Mrs Masons predictions usually against the odds?
E) To what extent does Mrs Mason base her predictions on Psychic intuion as opposed to psychic ability?
 I selected E.. Can someone please explain why is it wrong?

aditya8062 · Answer

the answer is pretty much A : What percentage of Mrs. Mason's predictions has come true?

conclusion is  : Mrs. Mason is gifted with psychic powers that enable her to foretell future events

facts  :  examples are given of events that she had predicted that turned out true  !!
now what the best basis to evaluate? the best way is to know her accuracy in terms of percentage as said by option A

why E is wrong ?
 E says  : To what extent does Mrs Mason base her predictions on Psychic intuion as opposed to psychic ability 
the conclusion is about the fact that this lady is gifted with some powers .no where the argument is claiming a difference between Psychic intuion and psychic ability

ConnectTheDots · Answer

why D is incorrect ?

If the predictions are rather obvious, what does it prove if 100% of them are accurate ?

aditya8062 · Answer

the conclusion is about the fact that  Mrs. Mason is gifted with psychic powers that enable her to foretell future events . no where it claims the kind of predictions she is making!! . now even if her claims are not against the odds and if what ever she is claiming is turning to be true then also the conclusion will hold because the conclusion is not making any empirical claim that she is making better predictions than her contemporaries,after all that is how odds are evaluated !!

also note that " if what ever she is claiming is turning to be true" then the conclusion is very much evaluated

RahulSingh13 · Answer

Aks,

I happened to choose E myself first because i felt psychic intuition was something clearly different from psychic ability but it is not the case. They are almost synonymous. Psychic ability operates on the faculty of intuition.

This doesn't look like a very well framed question. The OA doesn't make a lot of sense. How would the % of accurate predictions be irrefutable proof to a person's psychic ability? If the events foretold are 85% accurate does it add weight to her psychic powers? If it is 65% does she still possess psychic power? Whats the range? I feel we need to find an answer here that says it is really psychic ability that is helping her to make these predictions and not just simple guessing or safe bets.

b9n920 · Answer

Hi RahulSingh13,

I just want to discuss my thought about this Q. Don't u think that a conclusion is always a group of words (often convoluted) and it's up to the reader to choose an aspect from the conclusion for debate? I feel in the conclusion: ' Mrs. Mason is gifted with psychic powers that enable her to foretell future events ' - the principal claim is that the lady can foretell future events and not that her powers are psychic or otherwise. That she possess psychic powers is rather a premise by the author. If we think this way choice A makes much more sense, isn't it? 
 Share your thoughts, if u like to.

Thanks.

RahulSingh13 · Answer

b9n920 · Answer

Hi Rahul,

Your first comment was more concerned about 'psychic powers', but now u feel D is a better choice. Anyway, D can be easily ruled out in front of A, I think. Think about it, which one is more necessary: 1. Mrs Mason's accuracy (% correct) or 2. Her predictions being against the odds. Please notice that without 1, 2 is just nothing. Consider this: Mrs. Mason predicted in 90% events against general public expectations but her accuracy has been only 5% (e.g. She favored RaGa over NaMo

). So, A is anytime better than D. D is a very good point given A is true

Ur comments.

Thanks.

). So, A is anytime better than D. D is a very good point given A is true

Ur comments. Thanks.

RahulSingh13 · Answer

My stance is still concerned with psychic powers which i believe is synonymous with the faculty of foretelling future events, I chose to drop that term for the sake of taking up your argument and following from there, which is something I'm afraid you haven't reciprocated since you still haven't answered my question, namely "if her accuracy in predictions is not 100% can it still be claimed that she can foretell future events?" I erroneously selected Option E which I've conceded in my first comment itself since I wrongly presumed psychic intuition to be an alternative explanation which it is not. If you read my first comment you can clearly see that I've stated " I feel we need to find an answer here that says it is really psychic ability that is helping her to make these predictions and not just simple guessing or safe bets." In my opinion D went on to explain that but after your explanation I can see how D doesn't fit the bill but A still doesn't convince me either!

b9n920 · Answer

Hi Rahul,

Okay, can we think of the argument stating  Mrs. Mason is gifted with psychic powers  as a premise and  her powers enable her to foretell future events  as the main conclusion? I think we can divide the first sentence into 2 w/o changing the meaning. So, the argument looks like:
 Mrs. Mason is gifted with psychic powers. Her powers enable her to foretell future events. In the past, Mrs. Mason has predicted such actual events as the election of President Clinton, the stock market crash of 1987, and the St. Loius Cardinals' 1982 World Series victory. These are just a few of Mrs. Mason's accurate predictions.

Don't you think we should take the first sentence as a premise and should not doubt it? BTW rest of the argument is totally devoted to the accuracy of Mrs. Mason and so is expected from the correct answer choice.

What do u think?

RahulSingh13 · Answer

Ok Binit, going by that , correct me if I'm wrong in my saying that the correct answer choice should help us establish whether she is foretelling the future events accurately which takes me back to my original question, what % is the right % to safely say that yes she is foretelling her predictions accurately. It's either 100% or nothing right? So lets assume when we raise the question "What percentage of Mrs. Mason's predictions has come true?" and the answer is 70%. Now what I am trying to understand is what does that tell us about Mrs Mason's ability to foretell. It would be really helpful if you could elaborate your rationale behind choosing option A vis-a-vis the argument instead of breaking down the argument further.
As far as I what I've picked up since i recently got started on my gmat prep is that the correct answer choice addresses the conclusion, and since we are agreeing here that the main conclusion is "her powers enable her to foretell future events" shouldn't we be looking for an answer that tells us it indeed is her powers that enables her and not something else? Please do let me know your thoughts because this is only helping me to understand CR and how to approach it more effectively. Thanks again for humoring me!

b9n920 · Answer

First, I am not humoring anybody. That's not the incentive behind my responses, not agreed at all.
Second, I wasn't aware that you just started your GMAT prep. 
Third, in EVALUATE problems we can easily check the validity of an answer choice by considering 2 extreme situations and noticing how that affects the conclusion. E.g. choice A can be evaluated assuming:
  case 1: MM has only 1% predictions correct  --> weakens the conclusion.
  case 2: MM was correct 99% of times  --> strengthens the conclusion.
If u check other answer choices this way you'll not get the conclusion strengthened or weakened clearly. Some people call it a Variance Test, a definitive test to identify the correct choice in EVALUATE problems, but it's time consuming to apply the test on each and every answer choice.

Thanks.

Panoj · Answer

I have a clear answer to why A is superior to E. Option E is dealing with comparison of ways how the foreteller arrives at the prediction statement i.e. how much by Psychic intuion and how much by psychic ability. This option E if were true then option C should also be given a second thought. Here predictions have been made ,some accurate and maybe some inaccurate (read:These are just a few of Mrs. Mason's accurate predictions)...We would now instictively want to know how much of her psychic ability is successful in predicting correctly..so it basically boils down to share of successful predictions.Hence A is superior.

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PSKhore · Answer

The most useful question to evaluate the argument about Mrs. Mason's psychic abilities is A) What percentage of Mrs. Mason's predictions has come true? This question directly addresses the core claim of the argument, which is that she has accurate predictions, and knowing the percentage of her successful predictions provides a concrete measure of the strength of her claim.

Explanation:

Option A:
Focuses on the success rate of her predictions. If a large percentage of her predictions have come true, it strengthens the argument for her psychic powers. Conversely, a low percentage weakens the argument. This is the most direct way to assess the validity of the claim.

Option B:
While interesting, this question is not as directly relevant. Even if others predicted the same events, it doesn't necessarily negate Mrs. Mason's abilities. It merely suggests that others might have had similar insights, which could be due to chance or other factors. This question is more about comparing her to other potential psychics, not evaluating her abilities directly.

Option C:
This question gets into the "how" of her abilities, which is interesting but not as important for evaluating the core claim of "can she do it?" Knowing the mechanism doesn't necessarily prove or disprove her abilities.

Option D:
This question is somewhat relevant. If Mrs. Mason's predictions are typically against the odds, it could suggest a higher degree of psychic ability. However, without knowing the success rate (option A), this information is less impactful.

Option E:
This question focuses on the source of her intuition, not the validity of her predictions. Even if she bases her predictions on intuition rather than a specific "psychic ability," the success rate of the predictions still matters most in evaluating her powers.
 
 Therefore, option A is the most directly useful question for evaluating the strength of the argument about Mrs. Mason's psychic powers.

Source: AI Overview

Mrs. Mason is gifted with psychic powers that enable her to

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