Officials of the Youth Hockey League and parents of players in the league have become concerned with the number of flagrant fouls occurring during league games. This past season, the number of flagrant fouls was double the number from the season before. League officials plan to reduce the number of such fouls during the coming season by implementing mandatory suspensions for players who commit flagrant fouls.

Which of the following statements, if true, provides the best evidence that the officials’ plan will be effective?
1. Most serious injuries occurring during league games are a direct result of flagrant fouls.
2. League referees have been trained to recognize flagrant fouls and to report incidents involving such fouls.
3. Parents of players in the league are in support of mandatory suspensions for flagrant fouls.
4. A similar league suspends players for committing flagrant fouls; this league has a relatively low incidence of flagrant fouls when compared with the Youth Hockey League.
5. Most players in the league strive to be selected for the All-Star team, and league rules state that no player with a record of suspension shall be selected for the All-Star team.

The OA is 5, or E. I read the explanation and understand its logic, however is the question overlooking the fact that "Most players" do not include all players, and maybe it is the players who do not strive to be All-Stars that commit most of the flagrant fouls?

With that reasoning, I picked 2/B because I thought that the plan would be effective because better refereeing might reduce the number of fouls.

Please explain, thanks in advance.

E it is

B is wrong because the argument is accepting that "the suspensions would reduce the number of fouls"

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Many of the great achievements of the world were accomplished by tired and discouraged men who kept on working.

you totally can't do this.

in particular, you CANNOT:
* posit some hypothetical (esp. some extremely unlikely hypothetical)
* ASSUME that this hypothetical is true
* build an argument on this hypothetical (!)

this is what you've done here. your hypothetical (players who want to be all-stars and players who commit fouls are mutually exclusive) is, of course, possible, but you can't build an argument on it.

analogy:
let's say most tourists will not come to city X if hotels cost more than $200. therefore, if city X hotels raise prices to $250 or higher during september, then city X's tourism will be hurt in september.

using the same type of logic above, you could try to dismiss this argument by saying, "the passage says most tourists are put off by the higher prices. well, it's possible that the september tourists will be among the ones who don't care about $200+ prices. therefore, this argument doesn't work."
i presume you can see what is wrong there. if so, it's the same problem that exists within your argument above. if not, please post back. thanks.



same problem as above.
the passage contains zero evidence, of any kind, for a connection between better refereeing and fewer fouls. (in fact, given what's in the passage, it's more likely that it's the opposite: better referees would call more fouls, given their tendency toward "reporting" as cited.)
you've just postulated (i.e., made up) this connection, and then you're trying to build an answer choice on it. you can't do that.

--

if all else fails, ask yourself which answer choice(s) is/are most directly related to what's ACTUALLY STATED/MENTIONED IN THE PASSAGE.

the conclusion involves mandatory suspensions.
#5 talks explicitly about mandatory suspensions.
#2 has nothing to do with mandatory suspensions, and also has nothing to do with reducing suspensions.

Ron,

I can't understand why D would be eliminated. It seems like a fair argument. The questions says that a similar league has fewer incidences of flagrant fouls. So, could you please explain why D has to be completely ruled out?

D doesn't mention the underlying cause of the low incidence of fouls in the other league, particularly whether implementing a suspension policy reduced the number of fouls. Moreover, regardless of what we assume about a similar league, E is better because it properly addresses the incentives at work in this league that will likely yield results.

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Tim Sanders
Manhattan GMAT Instructor

When I took the CAT, I answered D also. Here is another explanation: this is the incorrect choice because, although the other league has similarly implemented the suspension plan and the number of suspensions is low, we can't be sure that this is a case of cause and effect. The number may be low coincidentally also because, for example, the coach has inspired the players' professional sportsmanship. Therefore we can't conclude that the similar implementation of the suspension plan would decrease the number of suspensions in the Youth Hockey League.

E is the correct answer because it establishes a link between the use of suspensions and the effect it will have on the players because they don't want to have that on their records. E gives us a clear indication of how the suspension plan will be received and will modify the behavior of the players.

Thanks, cmtorres..

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Tim Sanders
Manhattan GMAT Instructor

another way of looking at Ron's explanation for @jiacheng.liu's query can be something like this:

(B) clearly means that better refereeing will report more fouls as those, which were missed earlier due to poor refereeing and will now be caught, leading to a rise in the # of fouls.

what @jiacheng.liu might have thought (and i did the same in my CAT) is that better refereeing will be able to catch more fouls now and thus, the players will be more wary before committing those fouls -- fouls that were not caught before. hence, the fouls will go down.

the above in BOLD is actually an ADDITIONAL REQUIRED ASSUMPTION (which is naturally true in the real world though).

i believe that (B) CAN be an ASSUMPTION though as it is required for fouls to be caught and is possibly a good STRENGTHENER for an argument with a CONCLUSION that says:
the number of fouls caught will increase

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Ashish
Share not just why the right answer is right, but also why the wrong answers are not.

another analogy for this argument that just came to my mind is like this:

if the state police are more alert about speeding traffic violations, then more people would be caught for speeding, even if it were a few MPH above the set speed limit. and thus, speeding offenses would go down in the future.

THIS is true in the real world! HOWEVER, in the GMAT world you need a real reason that after the driving offenses (virtually) go up, the drivers would be willing to be more careful simply because they don't want to be caught again <-- this is actually an ASSUMPTION.

a STRENGTHENER here would be:
speeding violations impose a huge fine and add a lot more negative points to a driver's record than any other driving offense.

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Ashish
Share not just why the right answer is right, but also why the wrong answers are not.

thanks for the comments, Ashish!

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Tim Sanders
Manhattan GMAT Instructor