In many scientific disciplines, Evaluate CR

[pushkalk]

In many scientific disciplines, scientists generally do not do highly creative work beyond the age of forty, a tendency that has normally been taken to show that aging carries with it a loss of creative capacity. However, by the age of forty most scientists have been working in their chosen field for at least fifteen years, so an alternative explanation is that spending too long in a single field reduces the opportunity for creative thought.

Investigating which of the following would be most useful in choosing between the competing explanations described above?

A. Whether among those scientists who do highly creative work beyond age forty a large proportion entered their field at a considerably later age than is common
B. Whether scientists' choice of research projects tends to be influenced by their own belief that their most creative work will be done relatively early in their career
C. Whether scientists who are older than forty tend to find more satisfaction in other activities, such as teaching and mentoring, than they do in pursuing their own research
D. Whether funding agencies are more inclined to award research grants to scientists who are veterans in their field than to scientists who are relative newcomers
E. Whether there is significant variation among scientific fields in the average age at which scientists working in those fields are at their most productive

Got this at number question number 40 while I had made only 4 mistakes in the entire section- this was my 5th. I am feeling helpless as even after reading some discussion on this question on a forum I could not comprehend the information. Also kindly let me know how to approach an evaluate the argument question. I have a month to go and I need to push up my verbal score even further by knowing how to tackle these "monsters".

OA is A

[george.kourdin]

agree that its a confusing question. i read the question stem and the answer choices once, was able to eluminate only two and had to go back to the question stem.

i think that the key to answering this correctly is understanding what is being asked and paraphrasing the question.

the actual statement is somewhat confusing/redundant so at least for me, it was important to boil it down to the two competing explanations that the question is referring to. what are they?

1) aging -> loss of creativity (scientists are not creative beyond 40)
premise: scientists are not creative once they reach 40
conclusion: aging causes loss of creativity
2) too long in one field -> loss of creativity
premise: by age 40, most scientists have been working in their field for a while
conclusion: working too long in one field causes loss of creativity

thus, the two competing factors that lead to loss of creativity are aging and working too long in one field.

we need an answer choice that deals with both of these. not one or the other. both.

a) entering a field at a considerably later age than common implies working for a shorter time in a field relative to other scientists. this statement links age and amount of time spent working in the field with creativity

b) weaker than above. doesn't seem entirely relevant
c) out of scope and only deals with (1)
d) deals with (2) -provides an explanation for why scientists would want to work for longer periods of time in one field, but does not help reconcile (1) and (2). this is also another statement that is plausible in the real world and makes sense, but its irrelevant here and most importantly does not deal with competing explanations
e) doesn't hep us....we can try and use this info. lets say that there is significant variation and some fields lead to more productive work then others. what does that tell us? how does that help us reconcile the "competing explanations"? it does not. this is also another likely-true-in-real-world-but-irrelevant type answer choice.

[RonPurewal]

the problem gives two possible explanations for the scientists' loss of creativity: (1) they're too old, (2) they've been working in the same field for too long.

therefore, we need some sort of thing that DIFFERENTIATES between these two -- in other words, a situation in which one of them would be true, but not the other.
it's impossible for (2) to be true unless (1) is also true -- they can't accumulate a large amount of experience in one field without advancing to a certain age. therefore, the only situation that could possibly disambiguate these factors would be a situation in which (1) is true but (2) is false -- i.e., a situation in which the scientists have reached the age in question, but have not been working in the field for long.
choice (a) fits this requirement perfectly. the others don't.

[gmatwork]

I got tricked into picking B, thinking that since scientists are making a choice of picking creative projects early on in their career than later ....means that their decision for picking more creative projects (more creative work) is influenced by age NOT by time spent in their profession.

What is wrong with this logic?

[RonPurewal]

I got tricked into picking B, thinking that since scientists are making a choice of picking creative projects early on in their career than later ....means that their decision for picking more creative projects (more creative work) is influenced by age NOT by time spent in their profession.

What is wrong with this logic?

that choice basically just says, "if workers are aware that the likelihood of their doing highly creative work is lower [FOR ABSOLUTELY ANY REASON AT ALL], then they may choose creative or non-creative projects accordingly."
the effect of this statement is the same regardless of the actual cause of the diminution in creativity. whether the decrease is due to aging, to time spent in the same field, or to crazy voodoo black magic, this choice is unaffected. it does nothing to favor one explanation over the other.

[trapanister]

According with the 5th guide here we have to find an answer that to evaluate the argument: at the same time strenghten and weaken the argument.

Only choice A do this at the same time.

The others don't or deal with only one side

is correct ron ??

[RonPurewal]

According with the 5th guide here we have to find an answer that to evaluate the argument: at the same time strenghten and weaken the argument.

Only choice A do this at the same time.

The others don't or deal with only one side

is correct ron ??

that's basically the idea. i.e., these choices start with "whether", so they don't actually take a side on the issue; if you remove "whether" and actually decide the issue one way or the other, then you should wind up with something that decides the argument one way or the other.

in this particular problem, note that there are two competing arguments, not just one argument, and that your task is to choose between the two. therefore, rather than thinking in pure terms of "strengthen" or "weaken", here you should think in terms of supporting (strengthening) one of the arguments while undermining (weakening) the other.