Question of the Day (Critical Reasoning)
There is no reason why the work of scientists has to be officially confirmed before being published. There is a system in place for the confirmation or disconfirmation of scientific finding, namely, the replication of results by other scientists. Poor scientific work on the part of any one scientist, which can include anything from careless reporting practices to fraud, is not harmful. It will be exposed and rendered harmless when other scientists conduct the experiments and obtain disconfirmatory results.

Which one of the following, if true, would weaken the argument?

(a) Scientific experiments can go unchallenged for many years before they are replicated.
(b) Most scientists work in universities, where their work is submitted to peer review before publication.
(c) Most scientists are under pressure to make their work accessible to the scrutiny of replication.
(d) In scientific experiments, careless reporting is more common than fraud.

The correct answer is (a). The author boldly announces her conclusion in the first sentence, which claims that requiring official confirmation of scientific work serves no purpose at all. For evidence, the author notes that poor scientific work will be exposed if other scientists conduct the same experiments. That’s great, but how long will it take to expose shoddy work? If scientific experiments can go unchallenged for years before they are replicated (choice (a)), then bad scientific work could be in circulation causing damage for quite a while before it is eventually retracted. This, contrary to the author’s contention, would give us a reason to prefer official confirmation of scientific findings. (a) weakens the argument.

Question of the Day (Critical Reasoning)
Advertisers are often criticized for their unscrupulous manipulation of people's tastes and wants. There is evidence, however, that some advertisers are motivated by moral as well as financial considerations. A particular publication decided to change its image from being a family newspaper to concentrating on sex and violence, thus appealing to a different readership. Some advertisers withdrew their advertisements from the publication, and this must have been because they morally disapproved of publishing salacious material.

Which one of the following, if true, would most strengthen the argument?

(a) The advertisers switched their advertisements to other family newspapers.
(b) Some advertisers switched from family newspapers to advertise in the changed publication.
(c) The advertisers expected their product sales to increase if they stayed with the changed publication, but to decrease if they withdrew.
(d) People who generally read family newspapers are not likely to buy newspapers that concentrate on sex and violence.

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The correct answer is (c). Responding to the criticism of advertisers, the author argues that some of them are influenced by morals as well as profit. To support her position, the author cites the case of a publication that switched from a family orientation to a concentration on sex and violence. In response, some advertisers withdrew their ads. The author concludes that they must have withdrawn their ads because of their moral disapproval, but is that necessarily so? Maybe they thought that advertising in the new “salacious” magazine would hurt them financially. Maybe the advertisers’ decisions had nothing to do with moral considerations, as the author posits; maybe, as always, it’s the Almighty Dollar that rules. This line of reasoning would weaken the author’s argument, and the cynical among us may have been thinking just this as we read through the stimulus.

However, we’re asked to strengthen, not weaken the argument, and one way to do that is to shore up the potential weakness just uncovered, the possibility that financial considerations outweighed moral ones in the advertisers’ decision. The author assumes that this is not so, so essentially we’re attempting to strengthen the argument by bolstering the author’s central assumption. (C) does just that: if the advertisers who left the publication would have increased their sales had they stayed, then they couldn’t have left solely for financial considerations; something else must have played a role. Thus, ruling out money as the sole consideration in effect strengthens the author’s argument that the advertisers left on moral grounds.

Question of the Day (Critical Reasoning)
Governments have only one response to public criticism of socially necessary services: regulation of the activity of providing those services. But governments inevitably make the activity more expensive by regulating it, and that is particularly troublesome in these times of strained financial resources. However, since public criticism of child-care services has undermined all confidence in such services, and since such services are socially necessary, the government is certain to respond.

Which one of the following statements can be inferred from the passage?

(a) The quality of child care will improve.
(b) The cost of providing child-care services will increase.
(c) The government will use funding to foster advances in child care.
(d) If public criticism of policy is strongly voiced, the government is certain to respond.

The correct answer is (b). Rearranged, this stimulus becomes a simple logical chain, starting with the last sentence: child-care services are socially necessary and are being publicly criticized, therefore the government must respond. The government has only one response to criticism of socially necessary services, and that response is to regulate the activity providing that service. (Therefore, we can infer that the government will regulate the provision of child-care services.) Every time the government regulates an activity, it inevitably makes that activity more expensive. So finally, we can infer (b): the government will make the provision of child-care services more expensive.

Question of the Day (Critical Reasoning)
The “suicide wave” that followed the United States stock market crash of October 1929 is more legend than fact. Careful examination of the monthly figures on the causes of death in 1929 shows that the number of suicides in October and in November was comparatively low. In only three other months were the monthly figures lower. During the summer months, when the stock market was flourishing, the number of suicides was substantially higher.

Which one of the following, if true, would best challenge the conclusion of the passage?

(a) The suicide rate is influenced by many psychological, interpersonal, and societal factors during any given historical period.
(b) October and November have almost always had relatively high suicide rates, even during the 1920s and 1930s.
(c) The suicide rate in October and November of 1929 was considerably higher than the average for those months during several preceding and following years.
(d) During the years surrounding the stock market crash, suicide rates were typically lower at the beginning of any calendar year than toward the end of that year.