Below is the Q. I understand how E is the answer. But I'm not so sure, why C cannot be the answer?

In Morigia the average age of cars that are still in use has historically been seven years, but now it is nearly nine years. Car manufacturers claim that the current poor economy has forced people to put off buying new cars, and thus when the economy improves, the average age of cars will return to former levels.
Which of the following, if true, most seriously calls into question the car manufacturers' prediction?
(A) Fewer cars per year are now being manufactured in Morigia than were being manufactured there five years ago.
(B) When the threat of job loss is particularly strong, people are reluctant to commit themselves to expensive purchases.
(C) The older a car is, the greater the amount of upkeep it requires.
(D) The air-pollution control devices now being used in cars manufactured in Morigia cost less than those that were used seven years ago.
(E) Most people in Morigia now believe that replacing an old car with a new one has very undesirable ecological consequences.

(A) Fewer cars per year are now being manufactured in Morigia than were being manufactured there five years ago.
(B) When the threat of job loss is particularly strong, people are reluctant to commit themselves to expensive purchases. - this is kind of irrelevant or a mildly strengthens the argument conclusion at the best
(C) The older a car is, the greater the amount of upkeep it requires.- So, obviously then you would not want to half an old car. So, this indicates that people would try to dispose off their old cars as early as possible to avoid upkeep costs thus reducing the avg. life of a car
(D) The air-pollution control devices now being used in cars manufactured in Morigia cost less than those that were used seven years ago. - Irrelevant really
(E) Most people in Morigia now believe that replacing an old car with a new one has very undesirable ecological consequences.
Now this one provides an alternative reason for the average life of car going up . The dealers believe that it is due to economy but the real reason happens to be ecological awareness among people. So even if the economy would improve , people will not dispose off their cars

Man, this is a horrible question.



The conclusion is "when the economy improves, the average age of cars will return to former levels." You can pretty safely gloss this as "when the economy approves, more people will buy new cars."

The premise is "car manufacturers claim that the current poor economy has forced people to put off buying new cars."

E suggests that the car manufacturers' claim is wrong, and that the real reason people are not buying new cars will persist even in an improved economy.

C might seem to suggest that the car manufacturers' claim is wrong, but it doesn't really. Even if older cars require more upkeep than do newer cars, the total cost of ownership for an old car might still be much less than the total cost of ownership for a new car. So the manufacturers' claim is unaffected.

Fair enough. Thank you M.

glad michael's explanation helped.

Hello, I can see why E is correct, though i felt tempted with A.
Could someone explain me why A is no ta correct answer?

Thank you

M

I don't understand how E can be the answer.

Premise doesn't tell us anything about how ecological concerns of people affect their purchasing considerations. On the other hand, A states that fewer cars are being manufactures now than 5 years ago, so clearly people will have fewer options to choose from; hence this option can weaken the argument (even though I know a realistic posibility can be 500 cars/year 5 years ago and 499 cars/year now!! but still I feel that's a better choice than E where we need to assume cause and effect between ecological concerns and car purchase patterns).

Pleaseeeeeeee advise??

Premise doesn't tell us anything about how ecological concerns of people affect their purchasing considerations.

E speaks to the question of why people aren't buying new cars, which question is well within the scope of the argument. Such scope considerations can be tricky. Here, as in many strengthen, some weaken, and a few assumption questions, you have a new consideration well within the scope of the argument.

You can also have a an out-of-scope answer without new words; one OG question has premises dealing with the activity of white blood cells and with the growth of disease-causing bacteria, and an out-of-scope answer dealing with the growth of white blood cells (that from memory).

Also, I don't understand A to mean that fewer models are available, but that a smaller number of cars are being manufactured. I suppose that you could tell a story such that the smaller supply of cars drives up prices and drives down demand, but you'd have to tell make a number of non0bvious assumptions, and answers that require you to tell such stories are very rarely correct.

Hi mschwrtz,
Could you please also explain why A is wrong and why this new information about "Ecological consequences" was given priority.

Or is it that New info answer always higher priority in a weaken question?

the basic idea of the argument is that people will return to buying and driving newer cars once the economy improves.

choice (a) simply states that fewer cars are being manufactured inside the borders of morigia; that's not directly related to consumers' purchases of those cars. (similarly, if fewer automobiles are being manufactured inside the US, there's no good reason for us to conclude that americans actually purchasing fewer cars.)


it's not an issue of "priority" -- a strengthen/weaken answer MUST contain something that's outside the scope of the original argument, i.e., something NEW. (michael is using the word “scope” in somewhat different way; in the terminology with which i'm familiar, “the scope of the argument” just refers to the set of topics discussed in the argument.)

also, in S/W questions, you must
* make commonsense assumptions
* interpret statements in the MOST PROBABLE / MOST LIKELY way
for choice (e), the most probable interpretation is that at least some significant fraction of these consumers will actually refrain from buying new cars because of their beliefs. (the only alternative interpretation is that basically all of them will ignore their beliefs and go ahead and buy new cars anyway; that's not very plausible.)
this, by the way, is probably the most important reason why the gmat contains a large number of strengthening/weakening questions: to test your ability to make highly probable assumptions and/or eliminate unreasonable or absurd possibilities. on these kinds of problems, formal logic is useless, and attempts to learn by memorization will actually be counterproductive -- you have to think in a very real-world sort of way.