Magazine article: Punishment for Crimes is Justified if it Actually GMAT Critical Reasoning

Question: Magazine article: Punishment for crimes is justified if it actually deters people from committing them. But a great deal of carefully assembled and analyzed empirical data show clearly that punishment is not a deterrent. So punishment is never justified.

The reasoning in the magazine article’s argument is flawed because the argument

(A) depends on data that there is reason to suspect may be biased
(B) mistakenly allows the key term “punishment” to shift in meaning
(C) mistakes being sufficient to justify punishment for being required to justify it
(D) ignores the problem of mistakenly punishing the innocent
(E) attempts to be more precise than its subject matter properly allows

“Magazine article: Punishment for crimes is justified if it actually deters people from committing them” – is a GMAT Critical question. To answer the question, a candidate can either find a piece of evidence that would weaken the argument or have logical flaws in the argument. GMAT critical reasoning tests the logical and analytical skills of the candidates. This topic requires candidates to find the argument's strengths and weaknesses or the logical flaw in the argument. The GMAT CR section contains 10 -13 GMAT critical reasoning questions out of 36 GMAT verbal questions.

Answer: C
Explanation:

The GMAT's critical reasoning section tests candidates' capacity for critical thought and analytical reasoning. The candidate must have strong cognitive abilities in order to provide a coherent response.

Pre thinking:
Article from a magazine: Crimes should only be punished if doing so truly deters people from committing them. But a large body of meticulously collected and examined empirical evidence demonstrates unequivocally that punishment is ineffective as a deterrent. Punishment is never appropriate.

According to the knowledge at our disposal, punishment is either justifiable because it serves as a deterrent or it is not justifiable because, as recent studies have shown, it does not.
Flaw in the sentence:
The act of committing a crime itself justifies the penalty, hence this flaw really makes crime justification for punishment. And it is not required that punishment be meted out ONLY if it lessens crime; it is not the other way around. It should not BE REQUIRED that less crime occur in order to justify punishment. If so, NO crime or criminal could ever receive punishment. That's ludicrous.

Let's look at each option separately.

A: Inaccurate
It is not the correct choice. No information provided in the sentence points towards the accuracy of the data. Hence, it is not reliable.

B: Inaccurate
Option B is the incorrect because this choice is giving false claims. The meaning of “punishment” never shifted.

C: Correct
It is the correct answer. According to the reasoning, punishing is never appropriate since it has no deterrent effect.

D: Inaccurate
This choice is irrelevant and incorrect. It still says nothing about whether a justification is sufficient to support punishment, though.

E: Inaccurate
E is incorrect. It is not relevant to the given text.

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