I was curious if the word 'BECUASE' can ever be used to

Question

I was curious if the word 'BECUASE' can ever be used to signal a CONCLUSION in a CR passage. I have come across an instance where this might be the case. However in the MGMAT CR guide the word 'BECUASE' is listed only as a common PREMISE signal. I can post the question I am referring to but I wanted to know the general thoughts first. . . Thanks

jscott319 · Answer

Businesses are suffering because of a lack of money available for development loans. To help businesses, thegovernment plans to modify the income-tax structure in order to induce individual taxpayers to put a largerportion of their incomes into retirement savings accounts, because as more money is deposited in suchaccounts, more money becomes available to borrowers.

Which of the following, if true, raises the most serious doubt regarding the effectiveness of the government'splan to increase the amount of money available for development loans for businesses?

(A) When levels of personal retirement savings increase, consumer borrowing always increasescorrespondingly.

(B) The increased tax revenue the government would receive as a result of business expansion would notoffset the loss in revenue from personal income taxes during the first year of the plan.

(C) Even with tax incentives, some people will choose not to increase their levels of retirement savings.

(D) Bankers generally will not continue to lend money to businesses whose prospective earnings areinsufficient to meet their loan repayment schedules.

(E) The modified tax structure would give all taxpayers, regardless of their incomes, the same tax savings fora given increase in their retirement savings.

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jscott319 · Answer

any thoughts????

dkverma · Answer

Is it E.

jscott319 · Answer

No it is not E. My original question is more about the recognition of conclusions rather than trying to determine the answer

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BKimball · Answer

Good question. "Because" indicates a rationale and thus a premise, not a conclusion:

"The Dodgers will win BECAUSE they have better players." --> "They have better players" is a premise.
"BECAUSE you are my friend, I will loan you five dollars." --> "You are my friend" is a premise.

You could have the following:

"My sister hates cheese and tomatoes. Because of that, she probably won't like pizza."

Here, the conclusion is that my sister won't like pizza (even though that sentence starts with "because.") This is acceptable because "because of that" refers to the premise in the prior sentence and "she probably won't like pizza" is an independent clause that follows.

Conclusions often start with "thus" , "therefore" , or a synonym.

That help?

Brett

daagh · Answer

Here ‘because more money is available’ is rather a premise and not part of the conclusion per se; the conclusion will be “(therefore) more money becomes available to borrowers.” The conclusion -marker “therefore” has been intentionally dropped to befuddle the test taker.

Incidentally, for those interested, the answer must be A, which directly addresses tax savings schemes and implies that the money available to businesses may not go up after all

VeritasPrepBrian · Answer

Hey jscott,

Great question - on Strengthen/Weaken questions you want to first identify the conclusion that you're supporting/attacking, so please do make that an emphasis. The four common ways to determine a conclusion are to look for:

1) Conclusion language like “thus” or “therefore”

2) A call for action, such as “we should…” or “they must…”

3) The effect of a cause-and-effect relationship. For example, “Because it is raining, the parade will be canceled.” The parade being canceled is a conclusion dependent on the rain.

4) The “Why” test. The “Why” test dictates that CR arguments are comprised of only two things: facts and conclusions. And conclusions need to be based on facts. If you ask “why is that true” of a statement, and realize that the paragraph gives no attempt at a reason for it, that statement must be given as a fact – no reason is necessary. But if a reason is given – if you can point to another sentence after asking “why,” then the statement that depends on another is likely the conclusion.

If you want to break this process down with an example, I recommend this blog post:  https://www.veritasprep.com/blog/2010/11/gmat-tip-of-the-week-jump-to-conclusions/

Now, on this question, it's actually not a straight Weaken question - this is one that involves a plan or strategy. On Plan/Strategy questions, the "objective" is the "conclusion" - your job isn't to weaken an argument, but rather to demonstrate that the government's plan won't likely reach its objective.

So here, you'd want to use "to help businesses (who are hamstrung by a lack of available loan money)" as the "conclusion". The government aims to do that by cutting personal taxes so that people invest more and that money becomes available. As daagh notes, A weakens that plan by showing that individual consumers will borrow that increase in available loan funding, meaning that the plan won't actually increase the pool available "to help businesses".

I was curious if the word 'BECUASE' can ever be used to

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