* press secretary

[ting.cui10]

Press secretary: our critics claim that the president's recent highway project cancellations demonstrate a vindictive desire to punish legislative districts controlled by opposition parties. They offer as evidence the fact that 90% of the projects cancelled were in such districts. But all of the cancelled projects had been identified as wasteful in a report written by respected nonpartisan auditors. So the president's choice was clearly motivated by sound budgetary policy, no partisan politics.

Which of the following is an assumption on which the press secretary's argument depends?

B. The scheduled highway projects identified as wasteful in the report were not mostly projects in districts controlled by the president's party.
E. Reports by nonpartisan auditors are not generally regarded by the opposition parties as a source of objective assessments of government projects.

source: gmat prep
OA: B

I picked E, the OA is B. Even after knowing the solution, I dont see how E is wrong. Can someone please explain why B is the right answer? I tried using the negation technique and didn't see the logic either.

Thanks

[tim]

tell us more about how you implemented the negation technique. i think negation does an excellent job of showing why B is correct and why E is not correct..

[krishnan.anju1987]

B does make more sense. The fact that the report identified most of the projects that were in the opposing party's region as wasteful means that it might be the reason that 90% of such projects cancelled were from the opposing party's districts. Hence, it removes any chances of favoritism.

[tim]

thanks..

[gmat.acer]

Press secretary: our critics claim that the president's recent highway project cancellations demonstrate a vindictive desire to punish legislative districts controlled by opposition parties. They offer as evidence the fact that 90% of the projects cancelled were in such districts. But all of the cancelled projects had been identified as wasteful in a report written by respected nonpartisan auditors. So the president's choice was clearly motivated by sound budgetary policy, no partisan politics.

Which of the following is an assumption on which the press secretary's argument depends?

B. The scheduled highway projects identified as wasteful in the report were not mostly projects in districts controlled by the president's party.
E. Reports by nonpartisan auditors are not generally regarded by the opposition parties as a source of objective assessments of government projects.

source: gmat prep
OA: B

I picked E, the OA is B. Even after knowing the solution, I dont see how E is wrong. Can someone please explain why B is the right answer? I tried using the negation technique and didn't see the logic either.

Thanks

ting.cui10,
Press secretary’s argument does not need to assume that the opposition party regards the reports as unbiased. Even if opposition party regard the reports as biased, argument can still hold provided those reports are actually unbiased. So the argument only needs to assume that the reports are unbiased; it does not need to assume that opposition party regards the reports as unbiased.

I hope that helps.

[tim]

let us know if there are any further questions on this one..

[nowwithgmat]

hello instructor
could you please give detail POE about this question..

thanx in advance

**specially face problem with option B and E

[tim]

what does POE mean?

[aeqitas0114]

B cannot be the correct answer because B is just a paraphrase of the fact of the statement. (90% of the canceled goes to the secondary party -> 10% goes to the primary party.) In the RC, what is simply paraphrased can never be an assumption.

GMAT Prep shows D is the correct answer and I'm with it. Let's take away ''not'' from the statement D. By doing so, you will know that the average cost of the primary party's projects is more expensive than the secondary party's. This means that although the secondary party's projects are less expensive, they were rejected by 90%. This situation is obviously unfair.

By negating the unfair situation, D can be the assumption supporting the argument claiming that the President does not favor his party.

Any suggestions are welcomed.

[RonPurewal]

GMAT Prep shows D is the correct answer and I'm with it.

it doesn't; the officially correct answer is (b).

in any case, this problem, as currently posted, is in violation of the forum rules -- not to mention that you are describing an answer choice that isn't even posted here.

posters: please post this problem with ALL of the answer choices -- per forum rules -- or we will have to delete the thread.

thanks.

[messi10]

Here is the full problem:

Press Secretary: Our critics claim that the president's recent highway project cancellations demonstrate a vindictive desire to punish legislative districts controlled by opposition parties. They offer as evidence the fact that 90 percent of the projects cancelled were in such districts. But all of the canceled projects had been identified as wasteful in a report written by respected nonpartisan auditors. So the president's choice was clearly motivated by sound budgetary policy, not partisan politics.

Which of the following is an assumption on which the press secretary's argument depends?

A. Canceling highway projects was not the only way for the president to punish legislative districts controlled by opposition parties.

B. The scheduled highway projects identified as wasteful in the report were not mostly projects in districts controlled by the president's party.

C. The number of projects canceled was a significant proportion of all the highway projects that were to be undertaken by the government in the near future.

D. The highway projects canceled in districts controlled by the president's party were not generally more expensive than the projects canceled in districts controlled by opposition parties.

E. Reports by nonpartisan auditors are not generally regarded by the opposition parties as a source of objective assessments of government projects.


OA is indeed B.

I too got this question wrong. I think I understand why B is correct now but can someone clarify the logic:

Critics use the evidence that 90% of the cancellations were in districts controlled by opposition parties. Press Secretary counters this by saying that president's decision was based on the unbiased report.

The assumption in choice B is simply explaining the evidence used by the critics. i.e. the 90% cancellation in opposition party districts is simply because they were the ones mentioned in the report. The fact that 90% of them happened to belong to districts in the opposition parties is just a coincidence?

Thanks

[RonPurewal]

Here is the full problem:

Press Secretary: Our critics claim that the president's recent highway project cancellations demonstrate a vindictive desire to punish legislative districts controlled by opposition parties. They offer as evidence the fact that 90 percent of the projects cancelled were in such districts. But all of the canceled projects had been identified as wasteful in a report written by respected nonpartisan auditors. So the president's choice was clearly motivated by sound budgetary policy, not partisan politics.

Which of the following is an assumption on which the press secretary's argument depends?

A. Canceling highway projects was not the only way for the president to punish legislative districts controlled by opposition parties.

B. The scheduled highway projects identified as wasteful in the report were not mostly projects in districts controlled by the president's party.

C. The number of projects canceled was a significant proportion of all the highway projects that were to be undertaken by the government in the near future.

D. The highway projects canceled in districts controlled by the president's party were not generally more expensive than the projects canceled in districts controlled by opposition parties.

E. Reports by nonpartisan auditors are not generally regarded by the opposition parties as a source of objective assessments of government projects.


OA is indeed B.

I too got this question wrong. I think I understand why B is correct now but can someone clarify the logic:

Critics use the evidence that 90% of the cancellations were in districts controlled by opposition parties. Press Secretary counters this by saying that president's decision was based on the unbiased report.

The assumption in choice B is simply explaining the evidence used by the critics. i.e. the 90% cancellation in opposition party districts is simply because they were the ones mentioned in the report. The fact that 90% of them happened to belong to districts in the opposition parties is just a coincidence?

Thanks

The point is that the 90% statistic would represent a possible bias, unless 90% of all the wasteful projects were in those districts. I.e., if the cancellation of those projects were at all out of proportion with their presence in those districts, then an accusation of bias would be justified.

If that's too confusing, then try negating (B).
If you negate that premise, you get "Most of the wasteful projects were in the president's districts". If that's true, then the fact that 90% of the cancelled projects were in opposition districts"”which didn't even contain most of the wasteful projects"”would very clearly demonstrate a political bias, thus destroying the argument.

[750plus]

Here is the full problem:

Press Secretary: Our critics claim that the president's recent highway project cancellations demonstrate a vindictive desire to punish legislative districts controlled by opposition parties. They offer as evidence the fact that 90 percent of the projects cancelled were in such districts. But all of the canceled projects had been identified as wasteful in a report written by respected nonpartisan auditors. So the president's choice was clearly motivated by sound budgetary policy, not partisan politics.

Which of the following is an assumption on which the press secretary's argument depends?

A. Canceling highway projects was not the only way for the president to punish legislative districts controlled by opposition parties.

B. The scheduled highway projects identified as wasteful in the report were not mostly projects in districts controlled by the president's party.

C. The number of projects canceled was a significant proportion of all the highway projects that were to be undertaken by the government in the near future.

D. The highway projects canceled in districts controlled by the president's party were not generally more expensive than the projects canceled in districts controlled by opposition parties.

E. Reports by nonpartisan auditors are not generally regarded by the opposition parties as a source of objective assessments of government projects.


OA is indeed B.

I too got this question wrong. I think I understand why B is correct now but can someone clarify the logic:

Critics use the evidence that 90% of the cancellations were in districts controlled by opposition parties. Press Secretary counters this by saying that president's decision was based on the unbiased report.

The assumption in choice B is simply explaining the evidence used by the critics. i.e. the 90% cancellation in opposition party districts is simply because they were the ones mentioned in the report. The fact that 90% of them happened to belong to districts in the opposition parties is just a coincidence?

Thanks

The point is that the 90% statistic would represent a possible bias, unless 90% of all the wasteful projects were in those districts. I.e., if the cancellation of those projects were at all out of proportion with their presence in those districts, then an accusation of bias would be justified.

If that's too confusing, then try negating (B).
If you negate that premise, you get "Most of the wasteful projects were in the president's districts". If that's true, then the fact that 90% of the cancelled projects were in opposition districts"”which didn't even contain most of the wasteful projects"”would very clearly demonstrate a political bias, thus destroying the argument.

Sorry, but I'm still not able to understand that how negation is working on option B.

Option B: The scheduled highway projects identified as wasteful in the report were not mostly projects in districts controlled by the president's party

Negation of option B
The scheduled highway projects identified as wasteful in the report were mostly projects in districts controlled by the president's party

Conclusion
The president's choice was clearly motivated by sound budgetary policy, not partisan politics.

The negated option B should ideally break the conclusion.
But I can see that the negated choice B says that the scheduled highway projects that were identified as wasteful were in the districts controlled by president's party. This means that the President was fair enough and was not influenced by partisan politics.

Please let me know where am I going wrong.

Warm Regards
Rajat Gugnani

[RonPurewal]

The negated option B should ideally break the conclusion.
But I can see that the negated choice B says that the scheduled highway projects that were identified as wasteful were in the districts controlled by president's party. This means that the President was fair enough and was not influenced by partisan politics.

nope. i think you're confusing "identified as wasteful" with "cancelled". the excerpt above does NOT talk about which projects were cancelled.

let's put some percentages to it.
let's say that %60 of the projects identified as wasteful--i.e., the ones that SHOULD be cancelled--are in the president's district.
the point is that, if the cancellation process is politically fair, that percentage should be reflected in the cancelled projects. i.e., if the above is true, then about %60 of the cancelled projects should also be in the president's district.

however, according to the given information, only %10 of the cancelled projects are in the president's district! so, clearly some favoritism going on here.

[RonPurewal]

if that's still not clear, here's an analogy:

MBA admissions officer: It's true that 90 percent of the students we admitted this year are Indian. However, this doesn't show any favoritism, since all of those students were well qualified for admission.

this is probably easier to think about (if only because it doesn't have nearly as many words).
for the result above to be fair, about 90 percent of all the qualified applicants should be indian, too.
if 50 percent (or fewer) of the qualified applicants are indian, then the result above would be solid grounds for the accusation that indians were unfairly favored.