M: It is almost impossible to find a person between the ages of 85 an

Question

M : It is almost impossible to find a person between the ages of 85 an 90 who primarily uses the left hand.
 Q : Seventy to ninety years ago, however, children were punished for using their left hands to eat or to write and were forced to use their right hands.

Q's response serves to counter any use by M of the evidence about 85 to 90 year olds in support of which one of the following hypotheses?

(A) Being born right-handed confers a survival advantage.
(B) Societal attitudes toward handedness differ at different times.
(C) Forcing a person to switch from a preferred hand is harmless.
(D) Handedness is a product of both genetic predisposition and social pressures.
(E) Physical habits learned in school often persist in old age.

sasen · Accepted Answer

What is the question stem askin for? 
It is askinig us to find what is Qs answer possibly trying to oppose
This is a "inference" question which means we might have to make subtle inferences not 
directly stated in the text.Lets look at the choices: 
 Paraphrasing: Q thinks that 85/90 year olds all using right hand probably menas nothng
more than a particular social norm followed during the childhood years of this age group.
and M has gone a little too far in attributing this pattern to perhaps a UNIVERSAL RULE 
concerning human evolution and survival. 
Lets see what the ansswer choice states:

A) Being born right-handed confers a survival advantage.
 There is a slight hint that M might try to relate a persons age(and hence his 
disposition of survival for such a long time) to his left handedness..keep it 
(B) Societal attitudes toward handedness differ at different times.
 nowhere has M mentioned about changing times,he is clearly talking about a specific
age group..OUT 
(C) Forcing a person to switch from a preferred hand is harmless.
 M is noway referring to a force or a switch or a harm.OUT 
(D) Handedness is a product of both genetic predisposition and social pressures.
 M just tries to link age to a habit and most probably 
inferring a relationship between longevity and right hand usage.He is not trying to
venture into the reasons OUT 
(E)  Physical habits learned in school often persist in old age.
Where did school come from??? OUT 
By POE...A stands out

Legendaddy · Answer

M presents evidence that could be used to support some unspoken hypothesis. We are to take it that, without even hearing that hypothesis, Q rebuts it by presenting counter-evidence. We’re asked to locate the disputed hypothesis.
In sum, we want an answer choice that would be supported by M’s statement and rebutted by Q’s statement, and that’s answer choice (A). M’s statement that virtually no one who has lived past 85 is left-handed could be used to argue that right-handed people have a survival advantage over—i.e., live longer than—left-handers. It could, that is, but for Q’s reply that most people born left-handers who are now age 85 were forced to use their right hands as children. That would mean that many right-handed 85-year-olds may have been born left-handed and forced to switch. The fact that you can’t find old southpaws doesn’t mean that they die earlier, but merely that they don’t behave like southpaws. And that’s how answer choice (A) is supported by M but rebutted by Q.

getmba · Answer

IMO A. 
One line statement by M implies right handed people lived longer. Q counters it by suggesting an alternative.

talk2pk · Answer

Question focuses on :"Q’s response " = 
Q: Seventy to ninety years ago, however, children were punished for using their left hands to eat or to write and were forced to use their right hands.

From the "children were punished for using their left hands to eat or to write and were forced to use their right hands." can it be deduced that
 it was the (B) Societal attitudes toward handedness differ at different times.

IMO A is too generic...
I l go with B.

lahoosaher · Answer

I tried to solve this one again. Took a print and wrote down everything...

Situation : M finds it difficult to a person between the ages of 85 an 90 who primarily uses the left hand.
Lets take this as an argumet. Now Q assumes that there is no other possiblity of this happening other than the fact that Seventy to ninety years ago , children were forced to use their right hands. Because of this , and with the time , almost all of them got aquented with the use of right hand for anything they do.

Now we have to find a counter argument which will oppose Q's position on the situation at hand.

(A) Being born right-handed confers a survival advantage.
Now my doubt is , from what has been provided in (A) , can we deduce that Being born LEFT-handed DOES NOT confer a survival advantage? Rather poses a threat...
If YES , IMO A.

If NO , "Being born right-handed confers a survival advantage." does not say anything to weaken Q's position , it does not talk about left - handed people.

walker · Answer

A

M: It is almost impossible to find a person between the ages of 85 an 90 who primarily uses the left hand.
Q: Seventy to ninety years ago, however, children were punished for using their left hands to eat or to write and were forced to use their right hands.

Q’s response serves to counter any use by M of the evidence about 85 to 90 year olds in supports of which one of the following hypotheses?

Th answer: Other reason why elders are "right-hand" persons.

(A) Being born right-handed confers a survival advantage. -  the other reason that contradict Q statement.

getgyan · Answer

Maybe this is an Inference type question (A) Being born right-handed confers a survival advantage. (Good choice, M states that only right handed people survived till 90 years and all the left handed people did not. This has been countered by Q by stating that a lot of left handed children were forced to use their right hand. We cannot be sure as there could be left handed people above the age of 90) (B) Societal attitudes toward handedness differ at different times. (Maybe, but there is no mention of the present attitudes, eliminate) (C) Forcing a person to switch from a preferred hand is harmless. (Not relevant) (D) Handedness is a product of both genetic predisposition and social pressures. (Good Choice, M has stated something which looks like it has got to do something with the genes, but Q has countered it by stating that it was due to social pressures) (E) Physical habits learned in school often persist in old age. (Not relevant) Why is A correct and D wrong?

Kritisood · Answer

How to eliminate E? If "Seventy to ninety years ago, children were punished for using their left hands to eat or to write and were forced to use their right hands." that clearly means that physical habits (not using the left-hand and hence, primarily using the right-hand) learned in school (by children) often persist in old age. Could someone help with the reasoning?  GMATNinja   egmat   nightblade354

nightblade354 · Answer

Kritisood , (E) is wrong because we do not know where they were trained to learn this habit. Maybe it was at home? We cannot say that it was at school.

Kritisood · Answer

Oh! Just didn't come to my mind that it could be wrong because of this. Thanks!

Rashed12 · Answer

Q's response serves to counter any use by M of the evidence about 85 to 90 year olds in support of which one of the following hypotheses?

I have not understood the meaning of the line. Would anyone help me to get the simplification of the line?

adstudy · Answer

Hi Rashed12 , This question is somewhat similar to a weakner question. In a weakener question on the GMAT, we intially have the premise, then from that premise we have a conclusion, and then the question asks us how to weaken that conclusion. Right ? But what make this question tricky is that what 'M' says in the prompt is the PREMISE . What 'Q' says is actually the WEAKENER . What the QUESTION is asking you is to find what will be the CONCLUSION in this case so that everything falls in place, meaning if what 'M' says is the premise and we have the conclusion from the options, then what 'Q' says should be the weakener. But yes I agree it is worded quite differently and may be quite perplexing. That is why, I believe it is a good question to rack your brains.

But not sure if these questions have ever been seen on the GMAT or are expected to appear on the GMAT. Hope the above part has now helped you in understanding the question and also helped you understand how A is the clear choice.

mimishyu · Answer

Q's response serves to counter any use by M of the evidence about 85 to 90 year olds in support of which one of the following hypotheses?
- Q counter M (of the evidence/ premise)
- Q counter M, thus Q is weaker, in this part I can understand

but here the question concern about “hypothesis”, which will be the direct determinant to the answer

if this “hypothesis” is the hypothesis of M, THEN (A) CAN BE THE ANSWER
if this “hypothesis” is the hypothesis of both M&Q, THEN (D) COULD BE THE ANSWER
the above will certainly come up with different result which affect the answer-choosing

as Legendaddy say, it seems (A) correct, I’m wrong that I choose (D) at first, maybe this is where my crux is
 “The fact that you can’t find old southpaws doesn’t mean that they die earlier, but merely that they don’t behave like southpaws. And that’s how answer choice (A) is supported by M but rebutted by Q.”

It seems that the real problem for this question stem not lie in the wording too perplexed, maybe its my comprehension to the wording not enough to catch the meaning of this question stem

……meaning if what 'M' says is the premise and we have the conclusion from the options, then what 'Q' says should be the weakener.

as your saying for “weakener”, does this mean “weaken” to the conclusion for M?

adstudy · Answer

Yes by 'weakner' I mean 'weakening the conclusion of M' only. And a direct conclusion is one of the options as explained above

bratbg · Answer

Hello Experts, I did go through the explanations mentioned below, but can you please explain A vs D. 
Also, how to not give in to our real-life mindset/thinking process?

MBAB123 · Answer

bratbg , I'm no expert but I fully understood the question so might be able to help you with this. Q's statement cannot be used to counter option D. In fact, Q's statement would kind of strengthen option D by agreeing to the fact that social pressure can indeed influence handedness. Option A is clearly countered by Q's statement. Hope this helps, I'm but happy to discuss further if it does not.

unraveled · Answer

M : It is almost impossible to find a person between the ages of 85 an 90 who primarily uses the left hand.
 Q : Seventy to ninety years ago, however, children were punished for using their left hands to eat or to write and were forced to use their right hands.

Q's response serves to counter any use by M of the evidence about 85 to 90 year olds in support of which one of the following hypotheses?

(A) Being born right-handed confers a  survival advantage .
(B) Societal  attitudes  toward handedness  differ  at  different times .
(C) Forcing a person to switch from a preferred hand is  harmless .
(D) Handedness is a product of both  genetic predisposition  and  social pressures .
(E) Physical  habits learned in school  often persist in old age.

As anyone would have I also chose D ignoring 'genetic proposition' which is nowhere mentioned or even inferable.
The problem lies more into misunderstanding(or not understanding) the question stem than understanding passage and the choices.

Stem mentions that Q's response is a counter to M's argument that supports a hypothesis(this is where all the problem lies). Which hypothesis is it referring to?
There is no hypothesis mentioned in the passage so that means it has to be inferred but there can be many possible hypothesis. Here than comes the choices that help us narrow down what possible hypothesis the stem might be referring to.

POE helps but 'survival advantage' is where one gets dumbstruck - where did it come from. It happens since M does not mention or points out even slightly.

HTHs.

Prakruti_Patil · Answer

Wow! I'm still struggling to even understand the question here!

VerbalBot · Answer

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M: It is almost impossible to find a person between the ages of 85 an

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