Citizens of parktown

[george.kourdin]

hi Ron,

Is E wrong because it fails to account for the weekends?
Thanks.

nah. (e) is wrong because it's completely irrelevant to the actual issue treated in the passage.

note the passage's conclusion:
Even if the measures succeed in keeping teenagers at home, however, they are unlikely to affect the problem that concerns citizens

the passage is solely concerned with the effect of the new measures. therefore, we don't care if there are other programs that might have a mitigating effect on the crime rate.

i understand why the right answer is right, but i am not sure if i am buying the logic above.

how is E irrelevant to the issue? the issue is the increased frequency of serious crimes committed by local teenagers. the argument states that the measures enacted by the gov are unlikely to be succesfull because most crimes are committed btw 3-6pm. clearly the measure enacted by the gov. is a subpar solution since most crimes are committed in the afternoon. if there was another measure enacted that would help bridge the gap and keep teens out of trouble, the argument would be weakened.

[jnelson0612]

George, this is a complicated argument because we are weakening the idea that something won't work (kind of a double negative). Let's review the argument:

"Citizens of parktown are worried by the increased frequency of serious crimes committed by local teenagers. In response, the city government has instituted a series of measures designed to keep teenagers at home in the late evening. Even if the measures succeed in keeping teenagers at home, however, they are unlikely to affect the problem that concerns citizens, since most crimes committed by local teenagers take place between 3pm and 6pm."

Let's pick out the conclusion, premise, and assumptions. Italics below are mine but help emphasize what you should look for in arguments--change in wording!

Conclusion: Late evening curfew won't reduce serious crimes committed by teenagers.
WHY?
Premise: Most crimes committed by teenagers occur between 3-6pm.
Assumption: Many of the crimes committed during 3-6pm are serious crimes.

We want to weaken this conclusion, and say that the curfew WILL in fact reduce the number of serious crimes committed by teenagers. Generally to weaken a conclusion we want to attack the assumption. Notice how answer choice B does this nicely.

Your answer choice, E, says that teenagers will now have something to do after school. This doesn't help us establish that the curfew WILL in fact reduce crimes, since after school is a different time of the day from the curfew. Make sense?

[gmatango]

Wow. This is has come to be the best CR question so far.

Have a confusion in choice D:

D) Any decrease in the need for police patrols in late evening would not mean that there could be more intensive patrolling in the afternoon.

Do we need to have an extra assumption with this choice viz. police patrolling will be effective to reduce crimes. Or is there any other reason for rejecting this choice ?

Thanks,

[RonPurewal]

Wow. This is has come to be the best CR question so far.

Have a confusion in choice D:

D) Any decrease in the need for police patrols in late evening would not mean that there could be more intensive patrolling in the afternoon.

Do we need to have an extra assumption with this choice viz. police patrolling will be effective to reduce crimes. Or is there any other reason for rejecting this choice ?

Thanks,

the point of the argument is that the new rules will be "unlikely to affect the problem".
choice (d) strengthens this argument, by giving an additional reason why the new rules will have no affect on the afternoon situation. you want a choice that weakens the argument, so choice (d) is totally backward.

[thanghnvn]

Paraphrasing: most crimes are in afternoon, so keeping the teen at home in the evening dose not help
Prethinking: Assumption: there is no other cause, the aswer: there is another cause which make keeping still good
Look for a match: B is most close the the direction prephrased.

I see that though the prethinking can not make us find a close match in answer choices, it make us in the right direction.

[tim]

good stuff..

[gmatwork]

Please explain why E is wrong?

[RonPurewal]

Please explain why E is wrong?

read the thread, please, thank you.
post40375.html#p40375

[mcmebk]

I understand B , but I don't get why C isn't right as well.


C) teenagers are much less likely to commit serious crimes when they are at home than when they are not at home

That weakens the conclusion that serious crimes will not be reduced by the program.

Here's the problem: the plan will only keep them at home at night, and the argument tells us that most of the crimes committed by teenagers occur between 3 and 6pm. Thus, keeping them home during a time in which they are unlikely to commit a crime will probably not reduce the incidence of serious crimes.

Hi Jamie

C says Teenagers are unlikely to commit serious crimes; so keep them hope will reduce the frequency of "serious crime" and thus weaken the argument - Why not C?

[RonPurewal]

I understand B , but I don't get why C isn't right as well.


C) teenagers are much less likely to commit serious crimes when they are at home than when they are not at home

That weakens the conclusion that serious crimes will not be reduced by the program.

Here's the problem: the plan will only keep them at home at night, and the argument tells us that most of the crimes committed by teenagers occur between 3 and 6pm. Thus, keeping them home during a time in which they are unlikely to commit a crime will probably not reduce the incidence of serious crimes.

Hi Jamie

C says Teenagers are unlikely to commit serious crimes; so keep them hope will reduce the frequency of "serious crime" and thus weaken the argument - Why not C?

the issue is that they won't be kept at home between 3 and 6 p.m., when all that crime is happening. (c) does nothing to address this issue.

[arnavs247]

Ron,
please help me out with this, i did get the "serious crimes" part as soon as i started reading the argument. I narrowed down to options b, c and e. i eliminated b and c only because
B. Crimes committed by teenagers in afternoon are mostly small thefts and inconsequential vandalism.
-too generalized, we are interested in the teenagers of parktown, not teenagers in general.
C. Teenagers are much less likely to commit serious crimes when they are at home than when they are not at home.
- also too generalized, since we are interested in the teenagers of parktown, not teenagers in general.
eventually i chose e because teenagers are being kept outside their homes despite the police program into effect. hence, crimes will increase.
please clear this out for me.
thanks

[RonPurewal]

There are no "trick questions" or "tricky wordings" on this test.
None.
Ever.

If an answer choice states that something is true about teenagers in general, then, a fortiori, it will be true about the teenagers in a particular town.

(If this objection were valid—i.e., if you actually had to spell out all of the specific statements to which generalizations apply—then it would be impossible to write any generalization, ever.)

[RonPurewal]

Remember that "GMAT language" is just normal everyday written language. If you're coming up with weird ways of interpreting things, try them out in real-life situations, and see whether they pass muster.

E.g.,
Americans with regular income must pay income taxes to the IRS.
^^ If you're American and you think, "This statement doesn't mention Americans working in my field, so I guess it doesn't apply to me" ... well, you're going to jail.