PT55 LR section 1 Q23_A professor of businesss Forum

[existence1943]

Hello! I struggled between A and B. I understand that B does strengthen the argument, but I am not convinced why A is wrong even after reading many discussions online.

Here is the thought process when I struggled between A and B and finally landed on A:

Conclusion: computer delivered books does not make printed books obsolete.
Premise: a business professor found that --- 50/70 students prefer print-out to computer screen.

After reading A and B, I realized that they both strengthens the argument. But I felt that A is more relevant to the argument in that, it covers up a weakness in the argument. The argument is not strong because the evidence is based on business professor, which may not be representative enough to reach the conclusion with a greater scope. Now, ans. A provides evidence that this phenomenon holds true in non-business subjects. This specifically covers the scope weakness. I felt it is more specific, more tailored.

Could anyone help explain it? Thanks in advance!

[eraserhead]

I'm going to try my best to offer my perspective. I recently did this PT and also paused before I chose B over A. My reason for doing so:

C: Books delivered via PC will not make printed books obsolete
Evidence: 50 out of 70 students preferred printing their assignment to read instead of reading it on a PC screen.

I didn't interpret the flaw here to be one of appealing to an authority. Instead I thought the flaw was a small sample size. First, is 70 students representative of all individuals that make decisions between printed books/material or reading it on a computer? The conclusion really doesn't refer JUST to students and it refers to a general population. Another flaw, I thought we were talking about assignments? What in the world does that have to do with actual books? Maybe the assignment was the length of an actual book. But maybe not? The premise doesn't really tell us that.

Answer choice A: Gives you more of what the premise gave you. It tells you that several colleagues of the professor (other professors) found that in a select type of courses, several of their students do the same thing. How does this really strengthen the conclusion or the link between the evidence and the conclusion? The flaw is the sample size being used as evidence for a general statement and the jump from assignments to books. If anything this choice is telling you other professors found that in SOME classes this is the case by several students. This doesn't weaken the argument, but it does very little to strengthen it. It's more of a premise booster.

Answer choice B: Studies *CONSISTENTLY* show that *MOST* computer users will print reading material that is more than a few pages in length rather than read it on the computer screen. Do you see that this premise helps to support that shift? It's not limiting us to JUST students. It's instead referring to most computer users. Also note that this answer addresses the gap between the "assignments" listed in the premise and "printed books" listed in the conclusions. Most books are longer than a few pages in length!

[existence1943]

I'm going to try my best to offer my perspective. I recently did this PT and also paused before I chose B over A. My reason for doing so:

C: Books delivered via PC will not make printed books obsolete
Evidence: 50 out of 70 students preferred printing their assignment to read instead of reading it on a PC screen.

I didn't interpret the flaw here to be one of appealing to an authority. Instead I thought the flaw was a small sample size. First, is 70 students representative of all individuals that make decisions between printed books/material or reading it on a computer? The conclusion really doesn't refer JUST to students and it refers to a general population. Another flaw, I thought we were talking about assignments? What in the world does that have to do with actual books? Maybe the assignment was the length of an actual book. But maybe not? The premise doesn't really tell us that.

Answer choice A: Gives you more of what the premise gave you. It tells you that several colleagues of the professor (other professors) found that in a select type of courses, several of their students do the same thing. How does this really strengthen the conclusion or the link between the evidence and the conclusion? The flaw is the sample size being used as evidence for a general statement and the jump from assignments to books. If anything this choice is telling you other professors found that in SOME classes this is the case by several students. This doesn't weaken the argument, but it does very little to strengthen it. It's more of a premise booster.

Answer choice B: Studies *CONSISTENTLY* show that *MOST* computer users will print reading material that is more than a few pages in length rather than read it on the computer screen. Do you see that this premise helps to support that shift? It's not limiting us to JUST students. It's instead referring to most computer users. Also note that this answer addresses the gap between the "assignments" listed in the premise and "printed books" listed in the conclusions. Most books are longer than a few pages in length!

Yeah. After reading your perspective I feel more comfortable to accept B as the correct answer. Thank you!

[LesPaul1995]

It is these types of questions that I believe prove that process of elimination should be carried out by: if you can’t eliminate, then you must pick. Many prep companies argue that you should have 2 rounds, id est, if you can’t eliminate a and b, then save them for round 2 where you are to eliminate one and therefore end up with the credited response. They say not to compare answer choices, but I think this is a great example of a question where the primary distractor is very attractive whereas the credited response is not so much, and so narrowing them down, especially under timed pressure while weighing each choice against the task AND stimulus is simply to burdensome to actually measure whether or not we are, or are not, comparing answer choices. Henceforth, I would advise you to pick and quit, that is, if you can not eliminate A, you MUST choose it and move on, because if you don’t, I think it proves that your process of elimination procedure in and of itself does not have a high enough degree of scrutiny and thus consistency if you are able to move on from a choice that OBJECTIVELY is not able to be eliminated at all. Just my 2 cents.