CR - A proposed change to federal income tax laws would elim

[simplysmashin]

A proposed change to federal income tax laws would eliminate deductions from taxable income for donations a taxpayer has made to charitable and educational institutions. If this change were adopted, wealthy individuals would no longer be permitted such deductions. Therefore, many charitable and institutions would have to reduce services, and some would have to close their doors.
The argument above assumes which of the following?
(A) Without incentives offered by federal income tax laws, at least some wealthy individuals would not donate as much money to charitable and educational institutions as they otherwise would have.
(B) Money contributed by individuals who make their donations because of provisions in the federal tax laws provides the only source of funding for many charitable and educational institutions.
(C) The primary reason for not adopting the proposed change in the federal income tax laws cited above is to protect wealthy individuals from having to pay higher taxes.
(D) Wealthy individuals who donate money to charitable and educational institutions are the only individuals who donate money to such institutions.
(E) Income tax laws should be changed to make donations to charitable and educational institutions the only permissible deductions from taxable income.

This was a tricky question. I was confused between A,B & D. Then, I could eliminate D because it says that Wealthy ind are the only individuals. Hence, there might be some other people there to donate say companies. And so, this assumption might not hold true.
However, I could not choose between A & B. Why is B wrong? Please guide.

Counter against A - even if some wealthy don't donate, then how come that many charitable would reduce services. Are these some wealthy donating to many CI?
Favor for B - so, because the only individuals who donate to CI (because of favorable tax laws now) would stop donating after the change, and hence, the only source of income would disappear. Why is B wrong? Does it imply that if B has to be assumed, then all CIs would have to close doors and not some?
Please clarify.

[jlucero]

Keep in mind that assumptions are things that MUST be true, or else the argument falls apart. The (overly) simplified form of this argument is this:

If we eliminate charitable tax deductions, many institutions will have to reduce their services.

The large gap b/w the premise and conclusion here is that eliminating deductions will somehow affect these services. It's not going to happen b/c the institutions will look at these eliminations and think they should just reduce services. It's because of the unstated effects of this elimination: wealthy people will no longer donate as much money. A states exactly this. And the opposite of A would cause the conclusion to no longer hold true. If everyone donated the same amount of money w/o the tax exemptions, then non-profits wouldn't have to reduce their services.

Your reasoning for D is correct. Even if non-wealthy people donate to these charities, the conclusion could still hold true.

The same holds for B. What if only half of the money a non-profit receives is from people who are only doing it b/c of the exemptions. If the non-profits lose half of their money, they still would have to reduce their services.

[306097127]

I could understand choice D is wrong for only individual,but why B is wrong,it saids "only source" rather than only individual.And would you please help to explain why A is the right answer?
thanks

[jlucero]

I could understand choice D is wrong for only individual,but why B is wrong,it saids "only source" rather than only individual.And would you please help to explain why A is the right answer?
thanks

I think I answered both your questions in my post above yours. Let me know if something there doesn't make sense to you.

[thanghnvn]

B is a strengthener, not an assumption. negation of b shows that we do not need b for the argument.

a strengthener appears in assumption question frequently. gmat play us because a strengthener is attractive and tricky for us finding the assumption. This situation is exploited many times by gmat.

we have 2 weapons to counter this game of gmat. prethinking and negation test. we prethink an assumption before going to answer choices and we use negation test for 2 remaining atractive choices. I write down the my process of thinking and see that the 2 steps above is effective. the time for understanding the argument and prethinking is 1minute and half, the time for reading answer choices and negation test only 30 seconds.

I call B is AFFECTing BUT NOT STRONG ENOUGH TO BE OA (ABN)

for assumption question, ABN is a strengthener.
for weaken/strengthen question, ABN is weakener/strengthener which dose not alway weaken/strengthen.

we have only two weapons the play the game of gmat, prethinking and post-thinking. prethinking means we prethink the answer before reading answer choices. the post thinking means we realize the types of trap answer choices.

The first thing is that we need to find out the the pattern of cr (it is clear that cr has pattern. if cr dose not has pattern, gmat can not create the cr questions) and prethinking process of each type of cr pattern. the second thing is that we also need to find the types of trap answers so that we can realize them quickly we we see them stand by the correct answer. it is clear that we can do these 2 things to counter the gmat game and to get high score.

so, we wish to read the prethinking and answer choices analysis of expert in the way described above.

[thanghnvn]

THE process of prethinking is more important and is what gmat test us. we have to use logic to prethink an answer choices. this process of prethinking is what we need to have when studying at business school. process of post thinking is less important but also help full for finding the answer . a focus on prethinking is needed so badly that we can say that doing cr is prethinking.

[RonPurewal]

this process of prethinking is what we need to have when studying at business school.

yep -- and that's why they test this stuff.

[duyng9989]

I have a question:

How to negate the choice A and B?

What is the opposite argument of A and B?

I did not select A because "at least some". I thought that: okay, the tax incentive makes wealthy people donate money. But without the tax incentive, some people dont donate that much (but they still donate some). Therefore, even without the tax deduction, charitable institutions still have money (not much but some) to continue their service. Therefore, I eliminated A.

What's wrong with my reasoning?

please help :(

Thank you

[RonPurewal]

How to negate the choice A and B?

when you negate these statements, you should always think about the negations in real-world terms. in other words, you should basically use common sense to think about what it means if the statement is not true.
(you don't want to try to memorize "rules" for how to negate statements; that's at best way more complicated than it needs to be, and at worst nearly impossible.)

(a) says, basically, "some rich people would give less money".
if that statement is false, then this means that no rich people would reduce their donations. (again, don't try to make a "rule" for this; just ask yourself what it would mean for the statement to be false.)
if that's the case, then clearly the argument makes no sense anymore, because removing the deductions would have no effect at all in that case.

(b) says that rich individuals provide all the funding.
if this is false, then you know that there are other sources of funding, too.
that doesn't destroy the argument, though: even if rich individuals are only one source of donations, a decrement in the $ amount that they donate could still lead to a reduction in services.

[das.abhijit34]

Great explanation! I had hard time negating it technically.. Thanks

[RonPurewal]

Great explanation! I had hard time negating it technically.. Thanks

Not thinking "technically" is the entire point of CR.

[CrystalSpringston]

How to negate the choice A and B?

when you negate these statements, you should always think about the negations in real-world terms. in other words, you should basically use common sense to think about what it means if the statement is not true.
(you don't want to try to memorize "rules" for how to negate statements; that's at best way more complicated than it needs to be, and at worst nearly impossible.)

(a) says, basically, "some rich people would give less money".
if that statement is false, then this means that no rich people would reduce their donations. (again, don't try to make a "rule" for this; just ask yourself what it would mean for the statement to be false.)
if that's the case, then clearly the argument makes no sense anymore, because removing the deductions would have no effect at all in that case.

(b) says that rich individuals provide all the funding.
if this is false, then you know that there are other sources of funding, too.
that doesn't destroy the argument, though: even if rich individuals are only one source of donations, a decrement in the $ amount that they donate could still lead to a reduction in services.

Hi RON,
Option B fails because it may be true in some circumstances, and may be not in others.
While A wins because it is true in all circumstances.
So can we think in this way ——take the assumption question as a kind of "MUST BE TRUE". It has to be 100% authentic to let the conclusion stand.
I know regularly we have to presume and forecast first when we finish reading (know where the logic gap is), and then use the negation .
But sometimes I found it not that easy to apply negation.
Thank you!

[RonPurewal]

sorry, but i can't tell whether you are asking a question. are you trying to ask a question?

[CrystalSpringston]

sorry, but i can't tell whether you are asking a question. are you trying to ask a question?

Yes, my question is " can we think in this way? ——the correct option should be a "MUST BE TRUE". It has to be 100% authentic to let the conclusion stand"

I ask this because sometimes I feel it not easy to negate the options.

[RonPurewal]

the correct answer should be necessary.
in other words, if it is NOT true, then the argument is invalid.
(this is the definition of 'assumption'.)

you're not proving something FROM the statements in the passage; that's a different task altogether (= 'draw a conclusion').