What defines the scope of a CR argument?

‘Out of scope’ is one of the most frequently used reasons to reject options in CR questions. However, in my interactions with GMAT aspirants, I’ve consistently found a lack of clarity regarding what the scope of an argument is. If we don’t understand the scope of an argument, our understanding of what is outside the scope of the argument is also expected to be not clear. Thus, many aspirants keep coming across questions in which the correct option is the one they rejected for being out of scope. (Has this happened to you?)

In this article, I’ll try to deal with this concept of the scope of an argument.

We’ve put cart before the horse

While evaluating options, many people reason, “This option is out of scope. Therefore, this option has no impact on the argument”.

I ask them, “How do you know that this option is outside the scope?”

Some people fumble in answering this innocent question and, after a few minutes of struggle, realize that they have been relying on their feelings to call options out of scope. Others answer the question, saying “the argument is nowhere talking about the factor talked about in this option”.

I then ask them another question, out of curiosity, “So, you mean that the correct option cannot talk about anything not discussed in the argument?”

At this point, they realize that since except in inference questions, options in all other questions are expected to bring in new information, their logic doesn’t sound right.

I then repeat my question, “How do you know that this option is outside the scope?”

At this point, they are primed to listen to me

The reasoning (“This option is out of scope. Therefore, this option has no impact on the argument”) is in the reverse direction. The impact on the argument dictates the scope of the argument. Not the other way round. In other words,

Anything that has an impact on the argument is within the scope of the argument.

Thus, the question you need to ask while evaluating an option in an argument based question (strengthen/weaken/evaluate/assumption) is whether the option has an impact on the argument and NOT whether the option is within the scope of the argument.

In other words,

I’m asking you to discard this whole idea of using ‘out of scope’ as a reason to reject options and replace it with evaluating the ‘impact’ of the option on the argument. If an option has no impact, it’s irrelevant. However, if the option has an impact on the argument, it’s relevant and thus within the scope of the argument. So, what matters is whether the option has an impact or not.

We find it very convenient to reject options by calling them out of scope. However, more often than not, we hide our confusions and ignorance behind this terminology. We tend to reject options by just looking at a few words or phrases without understanding the gist or the exact impact of the option. Thus, we keep coming across questions in which the options we thought ‘out of scope’ or irrelevant turn out to be correct.

What I’m asking you to do is not hide behind this terminology. I’m asking you to face your confusions. I’m asking you to evaluate options in terms of whether the option has an impact on the argument.

Now, to evaluate whether an option is the correct answer (or has an impact on the argument), we need to precisely understand
1. the conclusion (the point being established),
2. the premises (how the point is supported in the argument),
3. and the question stem (what exactly we are looking for in the options).

Precision is the key. Exactness is the key. Having a superficial understanding or a ‘mota-mota’ idea won’t help. Changing a couple of words can make an incorrect option correct and a correct option incorrect. And those couple of words may lie in the conclusion, premises, or the question stem. Thus, unless you’re very clear about what is given, you’re not going to consistently get even medium questions correct.

Now, we’re going to look at a few official questions in which I expect people to face scope-based issues. In every question, I’ll share the question first so that you can attempt the question before our discussion of the question.

Question 1

Source: GMAT Prep Question Pack 1

Please attempt the following question before reading the discussion below:

The Earth's rivers constantly carry dissolved salts into its oceans. Clearly, therefore, by taking the resulting increase in salt levels in the oceans over the past hundred years and then determining how many centuries of such increases it would have taken the ocean to reach current salt levels from a hypothetical initial salt-free state, the maximum age of the Earth's oceans can be accurately estimated.

Which of the following is the assumption on which the argument depends?

(A) The quantities of dissolved salts deposited by rivers in the Earth’s oceans have not been unusually large during the past hundred years.

(B) At any given time, all the Earth’s rivers have about the same salt levels.

(C) There are salts that leach into the Earth’s oceans directly from the ocean floor.

(D) There is no method superior to that based on salt levels for estimating the maximum age of the Earth’s oceans.

(E) None of the salts carried into the Earth’s oceans by rivers are used up by biological activity in the oceans.

The correct option is , which is marked by 46% of the people. Option is marked by 37%, not too far. However, option E has zero impact on the argument. Before we understand this, let’s look at the following variation of the above argument:

The Earth's rivers constantly carry dissolved salts into its oceans. Clearly, therefore, by taking the amount of salt deposited by rivers in the oceans over the past hundred years and then determining how many centuries of such deposits it would have taken the ocean to reach current salt levels from a hypothetical initial salt-free state, the maximum age of the Earth's oceans can be accurately estimated.

If I make the above change, option E will become a correct option. (Option A would still remain correct. If you are wondering which option you should choose if you are given both, you don’t need to worry. You’ll NEVER be given these two options together with the modified argument)

In the modified argument, we’re taking the amount of salt deposited by rivers over the past 100 years to calculate the age of the oceans. Thus, if we get to know that there is another factor that can lead to a change in the amount of salt in the oceans, our argument will be destroyed. In such a case, we cannot rely just on salt deposited by rivers to arrive at the age of the oceans. Therefore, the negation of option E will break down our argument. Thus, option E is a valid assumption for the modified argument.

In the original argument, we’re taking the resulting increase in salt levels in the oceans over the past hundred years to calculate the age of the oceans. Essentially, we’re measuring the change in the salt levels in the oceans in the past 100 years. In this case, even if there are 50 factors that impact the amount of salt in the oceans, our method of calculating the age of the oceans works as long as those factors are not changing over time. Thus, knowing that some salt is consumed by the biological activity in the oceans has no impact on the argument. If some salt is consumed by the biological activity, the salt must have been consumed in the last 100 years too. Thus, by taking the change in the amount of salt in the oceans in the last 100 years, we can arrive at an accurate estimate of the age of the oceans.

From the above discussion, we can see that an option that was irrelevant for the original argument became a valid assumption when we changed a few words in the conclusion. The reason people find option E attractive is that they do not read the conclusion precisely; they just assume that we must be using only the salts deposited by rivers to calculate the age since the premise talks just about the rivers.

Question 2

Source: GMAT Prep Default Exam Pack (Mocks 1 and 2)

Please attempt the following question before reading the discussion below:

Kernland imposes a high tariff on the export of unprocessed cashew nuts in order to ensure that the nuts are sold to domestic processing plants. If the tariff were lifted and unprocessed cashews were sold at world market prices, more farmers could profit by growing cashews. However, since all the processing plants are in urban areas, removing the tariff would seriously hamper the government’s effort to reduce urban unemployment over the next five years.

Which of the following, if true, most seriously weakens the argument?

A. Some of the by-products of processing cashews are used for manufacturing paints and plastics.

B. Other countries in which cashews are processed subsidize their processing plants.

C. More people in Kernland are engaged in farming cashews than in processing them.

D. Buying unprocessed cashews at lower than world market prices enables cashew processors in Kernland to sell processed nuts at competitive prices.

E. A lack of profitable crops is driving an increasing number of small farmers in Kernland off their land and into the cities.

The correct option is . However, many people find option C attractive. They reason that if more people are engaged in farming cashews than in processing them, there will be more employment if we remove tariffs. However, what they miss is that the conclusion is limited to ‘urban unemployment’, not ‘unemployment’ in general. Providing any benefits to farmers has no impact on ‘urban’ unemployment. Thus, option C is irrelevant. On the other hand, option E is relevant since removing the tariffs will reduce the number of farmers coming into the cities and thus reduce unemployment in urban areas.

Again, reading precisely is the key to be clear - to be able to see which options are irrelevant.

Question 3

Source: GMAT Prep

Smithtown University’s fund-raisers succeeded in getting donations from 80 percent of the potential donors they contacted. This success rate, exceptionally high for university fund-raisers, does not indicate that they were doing a good job. On the contrary, since the people most likely to donate are those who have donated in the past, good fund-raisers constantly try less-likely prospects in an effort to expand the donor base. The high success rate shows insufficient canvassing effort.

Which of the following, if true, provides more support for the argument?

(A) Smithtown University’s fund-raisers were successful in their contacts with potential donors who had never given before about as frequently as were fund-raisers for other universities in their contacts with such people.

(B) This year the average size of the donations to Smithtown University from new donors when the university’s fund-raisers had contacted was larger than the average size of donations from donors who had given to the university before.

(C) This year most of the donations that came to Smithtown University from people who had previously donated to it were made without the university’s fund-raisers having made any contact with the donors.

(D) The majority of the donations that fund-raisers succeeded in getting for Smithtown University this year were from donors who had never given to the university before.

(E) More than half of the money raised by Smithtown University’s fund-raisers came from donors who had never previously donated to the university.

This question is one of the toughest official CR questions. I’ve already written a detailed solution on this link. Here, I’m just going to discuss option B.

Do you think option B is relevant to the argument?

Almost always, the answer I hear to this question is No. The reasoning given is that the argument is just talking about the success rate or contacting new donors, not the size of the donations. Thus, the option is out of scope.

However, this reasoning is wrong since the author uses the success rate to arrive at a conclusion that the fundraisers didn’t do a good job. Think about it. Does ‘good job’ logically include only contacting new donors and not the size of the donations?

If somebody accuses you of doing a bad job because you contacted only one new donor, can’t you challenge that guy by saying that the single guy happens to be a billionaire and that you have been able to get a very large donation from him?

You can challenge, because, logically, whether you did a good or a bad job doesn’t just depend on contacting new donors, but also depends on the size of the donations. Similarly, here also, option B is not irrelevant. It’s relevant and is weakening the argument.

Remember that anything that impacts the conclusion is within the scope of the argument and is relevant. Of course, in a strengthen question, you’ll need to see that the impact is positive. If the impact is negative, the option is a weakener and cannot be the answer in a strengthen question.

It’s easy to reject options by calling them ‘out of scope’. The options are not going to argue back, saying “we are not wrong for this reason”. However, if our reasoning is not correct, we’re not going to get questions right consistently. As a result, we’ll remain stuck at a certain accuracy.

Let’s look at our last example now.

Question 4

Source: Official Guide 2020

Enforcement of local speed limits through police monitoring has proven unsuccessful in the town of Ardane. In many nearby towns, speed humps (raised areas of pavement placed across residential streets, about 300 feet apart) have reduced traffic speeds on residential streets by 20 to 25 percent. In order to reduce traffic speed and thereby enhance safety in residential neighborhoods, Ardane's transportation commission plans to install multiple speed humps in those neighborhoods.

Which of the following, if true, identifies a potentially serious drawback to the plan for installing speed humps in Ardane?

A. On residential streets without speed humps, many vehicles travel at speeds more than 25 percent above the posted speed limit.

B. Because of their high weight, emergency vehicles such as fire trucks and ambulances must slow almost to a stop at speed humps.

C. The residential speed limit in Ardane is higher than that of the nearby towns where speed humps were installed.

D. Motorists who are not familiar with the streets in Ardane's residential districts would be likely to encounter the speed humps unawares unless warned by signs and painted indicators.

E. Bicyclists generally prefer that speed humps be constructed so as to leave a space on the side of the road where bicycles can travel without going over the humps.

The correct option is . Let me change the question stem to the below version:

Which of the following, if true, indicates most strongly that the plan will not be able to achieve its goal of reducing traffic speed?

If the above were the question stem, would option B be relevant?

The answer is No. Option B would be irrelevant with this question stem since option B has nothing to do with the goal of reducing traffic speed.

However, option B is correct in the original question since the question stem is pretty broad (it asks us to find any potentially serious drawback to the plan). In a way, option B is within the scope or is relevant to the question since the question stem allows for any drawback to the plan, not necessarily a problem with the plan to achieve the goal of reducing traffic speed. If I change the question stem as I did above, option B would suddenly become irrelevant. Thus, what determines the relevance of an option is the exact wording of the question stem (and the conclusion and the premises).

Summary: The scope of an argument is entirely driven by what has an impact on the argument. Thus, the primary question is whether the option has an impact on the argument or not. Instead of wondering whether an option is within or outside the scope of the argument, evaluate whether the option has an impact on the argument i.e. whether it can increase or decrease our belief in the argument. A precise understanding of the conclusion, premises, and the question stem is required to correctly evaluate the relevance of an option to the argument.

I’d be interested in hearing from you whether you found this article helpful. I eagerly look forward to your comments and feedback. If you have any questions regarding any part of this article, please feel free to ask. (This article was originally posted here)