GMAT Critical Reasoning- Weaken passages

GMAT Critical Reasoning- Weaken passages


While normal thinking is incidental, routine and adhoc, critical thinking is deliberate. It seeks to evaluate the quality of thinking, which involves a positive attitude toward observation and analysis of ones own surroudings, an earnest desire to read and experience, and a strong willingness to explore logic and pragmatic decision making.

In GMAT, Critical Reasoning (CR) entails anywhere between 10 to 14 multiple choice questions, interspaced among the 41 verbal questions. These questions measure the ability to evaluate an argument, study its construction and infer a meaningful strategy in rhetorical argumentation, strength, weakness and assumptions.
A good number CR questions on the GMAT, are based on the concept of weakening .The following examples may help the learners to get a bird's eye view of this very important type of verbal questions.
1. A law requiring companies to offer employees unpaid time off to care for their children will harm the economic competitiveness of our nation's businesses. Companies must be free to set their own employment policies without mandated parental-leave regulations.
Which of the following, if true, would most seriously weaken the conclusion of the argument above?
(A) A parental-leave law will serve to strengthen the family as a social institution in this country.
(B) Many businesses in this country already offer employees some form of parental leave.
(C) Some of the countries with the most economically competitive businesses have strong parental-leave regulations.
(D) Only companies with one hundred or more employees would be subject to the proposed parental-leave law.（C）
(E) In most polls, a majority of citizens say they favor passage of a parental-leave law.

2. Are you still reading the other newspaper in town? Did you know that the Daily Bugle is owned by an out-of-town business syndicate that couldn't care less about the people of Gotham City? Read the Daily Clarion, the only real voice of the people of Gotham City!
Which of the following most directly refutes the argument raised in the advertisement above?
(A) Over half of the advertising revenues of the Daily Clarion come from firms whose headquarters are located outside of Gotham City.
(B) The Daily Clarion usually devotes more of its pages to out-of-town news than does the Daily Bugle.
(C) Nearly 40 percent of the readers of the Daily Clarion reside outside the limits of Gotham City.
(D) The editor-in-chief and all the other members of the editorial staff of the Daily Bugle have lived and worked in Gotham City for ten years or more.
(E) The Daily Bugle has been published in Gotham City for a longer time than has the Daily Clarion.

3. At an enormous research cost, a leading chemical company has developed a manufacturing process for converting wood fibers into a plastic. According to the company, this new plastic can be used for, among other things, the hulls of small sailboats. But what does the company think sailboat hulls used to be made of? Surely the mania for high technology can scarcely go further than this.
Which of the following, if true, would most seriously weaken the author's conclusion?
(A) The plastic produced by the process is considerably lighter, stronger, and more watertight than wood.
(B) The wood used in producing the plastic is itself in increasingly short supply.
(C) The cost of the manufacturing process of the plastic increases the cost of producing a sailboat hull by 10 to 15 percent.
(D) Much of the cost of the research that developed the new process will be written off for tax purposes by the chemical company.（A）
(E) The development of the new plastic is expected to help make the chemical company an important supplier of boat-building materials.
4. Â Psychologists conducted a series of experiments to test the effect upon schoolchildren of violence in films. In the first experiment, grammar school children were shown a film that included scenes of a male teenager engaging in violent acts against others, such as punching, pushing, and kicking. During a free-play session following the film viewing, 42 percent of the children were observed to engage in one or more violent acts similar to those in the film. In a second experiment, a different group of children was shown a similar film featuring a female teenager. Only 14 percent of the children were observed behaving violently afterward. The psychologists concluded that children are more likely to imitate violent behavior on film when a male model is shown than when a female model is shown.
Which of the following, if true, would most seriously weaken the psychologists' conclusion?
(A) In both experiments, the victims of the filmed violence included both males and females.
(B) In the second experiment, 28 percent of the children appeared upset during the viewing the violent film scenes.
(C) The first group included 19 male students and 20 female students; the second group included 20 male students and 21 female students.
(D) In the first group, 58 percent of the children appeared bored during the showing of the film, and 12 percent fell asleep.（E）
(E) The percentage of children known to have discipline problems prior to the experiment was greater in the first group than in the second group.
5. Mainline Airways was bought by its employees six years ago. Three years ago, Mainline hired QualiCo Advertising Agency to handle its promotions and advertising division. Today Mainline's profits are over 20 percent higher than they were five years ago and 10 percent higher than they were three years ago. Employee ownership and a good advertising agency have combined to make Mainline more profitable.

Which of the following best describes the weak point in the argument above?
(A) It fails to establish a causal connection between the change in ownership at Mainline Airways and the hiring of QualiCo, on the one hand, and the rise in Mainline's profits, on the other.
(B) It presents no evidence showing that employee-owned airlines are any more profitable than other airlines.
(C) It assumes that the profits of Mainline Airways will continue to rise.
(D) It gives no exact figures for the current profits of Mainline Airways.（A）
(E) It fails to explain how the profits of Mainline Airways are calculated.


6. In 1980, a Danish ten-øre coin minted in 1747 was sold at auction for $8,000. Eleanor Bixby owns another Danish ten-øre coin minted in 1747. When she puts it on the market next week, it will fetch a price over $18,000.

Which of the following, if true, would most weaken the conclusion drawn above?
(A) Since 1980, the average price for rare coins has increased by over 150 percent.
(B) There are only four coins like the one in question in the entire world.
(C) Since 1980, the consumer price index has risen by over 150 percent.
(D) In 1986, a previously unknown cache of one hundred coins just like the one in question was found.
(E) Thirty prominent, wealthy coin collectors are expected to bid for Bixby's coin.

7. From time to time, the press indulges in outbursts of indignation over the use of false or misleading information by the U.S.government in support of its policies and programs. No one endorses needless deception. But consider this historical analogy. It is known that Christopher Columbus, on his first voyage to the New World, deliberately falsified the log to show a shorter sailing distance for each day out than the ships had actually traveled. In this way, Columbuswas able to convince his skeptical sailors that they had not sailed past the point at which they expected to find the shores of India. Without this deception, Columbus's sailors might well have mutinied, and the New World might never have been discovered
Which of the following is the main weakness of the historical analogy drawn in the passage above?
(A) The sailors in Columbus's crew never knew that they had been deceived, while government deception is generally uncovered by the press.
(B) A ship's log is a record intended mainly for use by the captain, while press reports are generally disseminated for use by the public at large.
(C) The members of a ship's crew are selected by the captain of the ship, while those who work in the press are self-selected.
(D) The crew of a ship is responsible for the success of a voyage, while the press is not responsible for the use others make of the factual information it publishes.（E）
(E) In a democracy, the people are expected to participate in the nation's political decision making, while the members of a ship's crew are expected simply to obey the orders of the captain.
8. Contrary to the statements of labor leaders, the central economic problem facing America today is not the distribution of wealth. It is productivity. With the productivity of U.S.industry stagnant or even declining slightly, the economic pie is no longer growing. Labor leaders, of course, point to what they consider an unfair distribution of the slices of pie to justify their demands for further increases in wages and benefits. And in the past, when the pie was still growing, management could afford to acquiesce. No longer. Until productivity resumes its growth, there can be no justification for further increases in the compensation of workers.

Which of the following statements by a labor leader focuses on the logical weakness in the argument above?
(A) Although the economic pie is no longer growing, the portion of the pie allocated to American workers remains unjustly small.
(B) If management fails to accommodate the demands of workers, labor leaders will be forced to call strikes that will cripple the operation of industry.
(C) Although productivity is stagnant, the U.S. population is growing, so that the absolute size of the economic pie continues to grow as well.
(D) As a labor leader, I can be concerned only with the needs of working people, not with the problems faced by management.（A）
(E) The stagnation of U.S. industry has been caused largely by factorsâ€"such as foreign competitionâ€"beyond the control of American workers.

9. In 1981, for the first time in over two decades, the average scores of high school students on standardized math and English tests did not decline. During the same year, millions of American students enjoyed their first exposure to the new world of the microcomputer, whether in schools, video arcades, or other settings. The conclusion is clear: far from stultifying the intellectual capacities of students, exposure to computers can actually enhance them.

The most serious weakness of the argument above is its failure to
(A) discuss the underlying causes of the twenty-year decline in students' test scores
(B) cite specific figures documenting the increases in test scores
(C) distinguish among the various types of computer being used by high school students
(D) define the intellectual capacities tested by the standardized math and English tests referred to（E）
(E) explain exactly how high school students' abilities on math and English tests could have been enhanced by exposure to computers

10. The city council will certainly vote to approve the new downtown redevelopment plan, despite the objections of environmentalists. After all, most of the campaign contributions received by members of the city council come from real estate development firms, which stand to benefit from the plan.

Which of the following statements, if true, would most weaken the argument above?
(A) Several members of the city council receive sizable campaign contributions from environmental lobbying groups.
(B) Members of the city council are required to report the size and source of each campaign contribution they receive.
(C) Not every real estate development firm in the city will be able to participate in, and profit from, the new downtown redevelopment plan.
(D) The members of the city council have often voted in ways that are opposed to the interests of their campaign contributors.
(E) Some environmentalists have stated that the new downtown redevelopment plan might be environmentally sound if certain minor modifications are made.