I do not know how to solve this CR. OA is A:

Smithtown University's fund-raisers succeeded in getting donations from 80 percent of the potential donors they contacted. This success rate, exceptionally high for university fund-raisers, does not indicate that they were doing a good job. On the contrary, since the people most likely to donate are those who have donated in the past, good fundraisers
constantly try less-likely prospects in an effort to expand the donor base. The high success rate shows insufficient canvassing effort.

Which of the following, if true, provides more support for the argument?

A. Smithtown University's fund-raisers were successful in their contacts with potential donors who had never given before about as frequently as were fundraisers for other universities in their contacts with such people.
B. This year the average size of the donations to Smithtown University from new donors when the university's fund-raisers had contacted was larger than the average size of donations from donors who had given to the university before.
C. This year most of the donations that came to Smithtown University from people who had previously donated to it were made without the university's fund-raisers having made any contact with the donors.
D. The majority of the donations that fund-raisers succeeded in getting for
Smithtown University this year were from donors who had never given to the university before.
E. More than half of the money raised by Smithtown University's fund-raisers came from donors who had never previously donated to the university.

Conclusion : fund raiser contacted 100 donor and 80 gave donations still the effort was not good.

Fact:
1) ppl who have donated in past are more likely to donate currently.
2)Good fund raiser constantly tried to expand the donor base.

how conclusion is linked to Facts?

fund raiser tried to contact the previous donor instead of contacting new donors, so it needs less effort...something in this category.

A) Hmm, the language is quite tricky here, but as per my understanding its saying:
Fund raiser had contacts with 2 type of dona tors: 1) donors who had NEVER give FREQUENT DONATIONS 2) Donors who had given frequent Donations.
they were successful with first type of donors. It talks about effort of fund raisers and also give us the possibility that they get donation from less frequent donors
not from new donors. so the effort was not sufficient. Although very vague but i think this is closed to answer.
B) again weakening the argument
C) Saying that maximum donation come out from donor without contacting, so it doesn't say anything about fund raiser effort.
D) Weakening
E) Weakening

well done.

(a) essentially proves that smithtown's fund-raisers aren't any better than fund-raisers at other schools, IF EVERYTHING ELSE IS EQUAL. this is solid evidence that the high success rate is artificial, a result of choosing "easy targets".

Hi there Guys .....

haven't understood how u are saying that the first is supporting the argument??

I feel that the first one is comparing one type of Fund raisers with the ones from other univeristies .... So, to me, it seems irrelevant.

But option B which says:
"This year the average size of the donations to Smithtown University from new donors when the university’s fund-raisers had contacted was larger than the average size of donations from donors who had given to the university before."

seems more logical for i feel it implies that:
look at the new donors - They on an average have given MORE donations than the new donors. So, HAD the students put in more efforts in canvassing, they would have got MORE donations !!
I know this explanations isn't also air-tight but given the other options, i feel this is a tad better !!

Anyone who can throw some light ??
( BTW: the source I got this from doesnt say the OA to be "A" ..... It says the ans is "C" !! )

nope, choice (b) actually weakens the argument.

when you evaluate these things, remember that you have to keep in mind the MAIN POINT of the argument. in this case, the main point of the argument is that the students are not doing a good enough job of reaching new donors.
choice (b) actually contradicts this notion: if choice (b) is true, then these fund-raisers are actually doing an even better job of getting funds from new donors than they are from existing donors!
(notice that choices (d) and (e) also weaken the argument, for almost exactly the same reason.)

choice (a) supports the argument because it does exactly the opposite of what choices (b), (d), and (e) do: it shows that the fund-raisers are NOT any more successful in their outreach to new donors than are any other fund-raisers. if that's true, that is strong support for the idea that the high percentage is just an artifact of sticking to the most likely donors (which is the point of the argument).

Ron, I disagree on why you say B,D, and E weaken



Excerpt says : fund-raisers succeeded in getting donations from 80 percent of the potential donors they contacted and this high success rate shows insufficient canvassing effort.

B. This year the average size of the donations to Smithtown University from new donors when the university's fund-raisers had contacted was larger than the average size of donations from donors who had given to the university before.
The average contribution per new donor > avg contribution from donors who had given before. It could be that they had one new donor vs 1,000,000 prev donors. The opposite might be true as well. Hence this statement is IRRELEVANT. (It does not weaken)

C. This year most of the donations that came to Smithtown University from people who had previously donated to it were made without the university's fund-raisers having made any contact with the donors.
We are not concerned with people who were NOT contacted. Hence irrelevant. (It does not weaken)

D. The majority of the donations that fund-raisers succeeded in getting for Smithtown University this year were from donors who had never given to the university before.
Does not mention if these people were contacted or not. Hence irrelevant. (It does not weaken)

E. More than half of the money raised by Smithtown University's fund-raisers came from donors who had never previously donated to the university.
Does not mention if these people were contacted or not. Hence irrelevant. (It does not weaken)



A. Smithtown University's fund-raisers were successful in their contacts with potential donors who had never given before about as frequently as were fundraisers for other universities in their contacts with such people.

However, we do not know for sure that these other universities made insufficient canvassing efforts (and that they were not doing a good job). Wouldnt that be assuming too much.

Tutors, Could you please breakdown this problem to the bare-bone structure and provide a generic formula for answer choices such as A?

Thank You

Here's one additional consideration, though perhaps one implicit in some of the remarks above. The conclusion is not simply that the canvassing effort is insufficient, it is the entire claim that The high success rate shows insufficient canvassing effort. Or, to put it more baldly, the canvas has a high success rate therefore the canvas effort is insufficient.

When you have a conclusion of the form X therefore Y, the argument assumes that there is not some alternative explanation for the evidence X. To weaken such an argument, you will almost certainly offer an alternative explanation. To strengthen such an argument, you may foreclose such an alternative explanation.

In this case, one such alternative explanation is that the canvas is in fact exceptionally good at bringing in new donors. A strengthens the argument by showing that this alternative explanation of the evidence does not obtain.

BUT...you almost certainly won't be able to anticipate such an answer, and you may not even be sure when you've read such an answer, so you need to eliminate wrong answer. That's what Ron did above.

I happen to think that Ron is right to characterize B, D, and E as weakening the argument (notice, e.g., that your criticism of Ron's account of D and E requires that the fundraisers "succeeded in getting" donations or "raised funds" from people they never contacted), but I don't much care. If your characterization of those answers is correct, if B, D, and E are irrelevant, you should still eliminate them.