The sanitation chief, hailing the success of her voluntary

Question

The sanitation chief, hailing the success of her voluntary conservation program, reported that the amount of garbage produced per capita in the city decreased dramatically last year. But that statistic is deceptive. Last year the city incorporated three villages from the surrounding suburban area, increasing its population by almost 30 percent. It is this increase, rather than the conservation program, that explains the statistical drop.

Which of the following, if true, would seriously weaken the author's objection to the sanitation chief's claim?

A. Because of differences between urban and suburban life, most suburban areas produce less garbage per capita than do urban areas. 
 B. The voluntary conservation program was not implemented in the three incorporated villages until very late last year. 
 C. The year before last, the three villages produced as many pounds of garbage per capita as did the city. 
 D. The statistics cited by the sanitation chief do not include commercial waste or garbage collected by private carters. 
 E. Due to a three-week strike, some of the garbage produced by the city during the year before last year was not counted in the statistics.

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Matthyrou · Answer

Hey, aim: weaken the arg 
arg: Because the area add new villages, it is the cause of the waste per capita deacrising and it's not due to the ecological program. (it means that these villlages have a waste per capita below the one in the area last year)
a)strengthen the arg
b)Doesn't help to weaken or strangthen, it's a claim but no info about the ratio in these villages 
c)If villages got the same ratio, the ratio should be the same if area is including these villages if there were no reduction of waste, so it helps to weaken
d)it's a claim to know more about the ratio, doesn't help
c)it says that the figures reported last year are below the real one, so this year, the ratio should increase if nothing particulary was happening, it doesn't help
Hope it's right and helps you, i wish a wonderfull gmat study day to everybody

kienvutrung · Answer

About C, that was from the year before last year, so we have an assumption that the ratio kept the same from "year before last year" to "the last year" --> imo, not significantly enough to seriously weaken the objection as the B,

About B, as "very late last year" --> the impact of the 3 villages to the overall performance is minimal, so the objection stands on the "3 villages" is weakened.

I would be more than happy to discuss more to see the flaw in my reasoning above. Thank you!

annguyen02 · Answer

" B. The voluntary conservation program was not implemented in the three incorporated villages until very late last year." -> imo it simply said that the voluntary conservation program had no impact to the villages, but they still produced waste. Another approach imo is mathematical logic

Ratio = Waste / Capita

Year before last year: Ratio 1 = Waste(city) / Capita(city)
Last year: Ratio 2 =   / Capita(city)*1.3

Based on the argument: " Last year the city incorporated three villages from the surrounding suburban area, increasing its population by almost 30 percent. It is this increase, rather than the conservation program, that explains the statistical drop." , It expects that Waste(3 village) < Waste(city)0.3 - which we don't have info from B

But for C, we may assume that Waste(3 village) = Waste(city)0.3, thus weaken the argument

pierjoejoe · Answer

the thing that would weaken the argoument the most is that the villages produce more or at least the same amount of garbage as the city. in that case the argoument would be weaken because it means that the city has effectively decreased the amount of garbage. 
infact there are 2 cases:
- villages produced way less garbage than city --> the autor would be right, because in that case the CHIEF is trying to "hide" the decrease by mixing in the statistics the villages too. THIS WOULD STRENGTHEN the argument
- villages produced the same amount or more garbage than the city --> we know that the statistics show that the amount of garbage decrease --> in this case it is very possible that the city has effectively decreased the amount of garbage per capita, because the statistics take into account also the villages that produced more (or the same) per capita. this would weaken the argument

(A) this is telling the opposite, infact it is telling us that in general urban areas produce more than suburbs. in this case we are literally saying the first of the 2 options we saw before.
(B) a bit out of scope.. i don't see the relevance. did the suburbs produced more or less garbage per capita with respect to urba area? we don't know...
(C) this is literally telling us that the villages produced the same amount of garbage per capita as the city. meaning that the decrease of garbage has NOT been doctored by just putting in the mix the three villages. 
(D) out of scope
(E) out of scope..

Bunuel · Answer

KAPLAN OFFICIAL EXPLANATION:

Identify the Question Type:

This is a Weaken question, determined by the keywords “would seriously weaken” in the question stem. The correct answer will undermine an assumption made by the author in objecting to the sanitation chief’s claim.

Untangle the Stimulus:

Per capita garbage production is lower this year than last. The sanitation chief claims this drop is a result of her conservation program. The author presents the additional evidence that the municipality has absorbed 30% more people as a result of suburban consolidation. The author disputes the chief’s conclusion, instead concluding that the drop in per capita garbage is not due to the chief’s conservation program but to the population shift. It is this last conclusion that the correct answer will weaken.

Predict the Answer :

The author assumes that suburban villagers are deflating the per capita garbage figures because suburbanites produce less garbage than their urban counterparts. An answer choice that shows there is no difference, generally, between these two groups in terms of garbage produced per person, or that suburbanites produce more garbage, would weaken the author’s case.

Evaluate the Choices:

(C) matches the prediction, stating explicitly that prior-year garbage production was the same per person in both the suburban and original areas in this year’s municipality, and is thus the correct answer.

(A) is the assumption the author is making, so it strengthens the argument.

(B) makes it less likely that the conservation program is responsible for the drop, which also strengthens this argument.

As long as the same type of garbage is eliminated from both year’s statistics, the effect of this on the different arguments is anyone’s guess, so (D) is wrong.

More garbage the year before last year, from (E), just increases the drop in garbage; it does not affect the author’s attempt to explain this drop.

TAKEAWAY:  When an author's argument depends on assuming that a group has a particular trait, weaken it by showing that the group doesn't.

The sanitation chief, hailing the success of her voluntary

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