GMAT Critical Reasoning - Without Information that could Only have Come from Someone Present at the Secret Meeting

Question - Without information that could only have come from someone present at the secret meeting between the finance minister and the leader of the opposition party, the newspaper story that forced the finance minister to resign could not have been written. No one witnessed the meeting, however, except the minister’s aide. It is clear, therefore, that the finance minister was ultimately brought down, not by any of his powerful political enemies, but by his own trusted aide.

The argument commits which one of the following errors of reasoning?

(A) drawing a conclusion on the basis of evidence that provides equally strong support for a competing conclusion
(B) assuming without warrant that if one thing cannot occur without another thing’s already having occurred, then the earlier thing cannot occur without bringing about the later thing
(C) confusing evidence that a given outcome on one occasion was brought about in a certain way with evidence that the same outcome on a different occasion was brought about in that way
(D) basing its conclusion on evidence that is almost entirely irrelevant to the point at issue
(E) treating evidence that a given action contributed to bringing about a certain effect as though that evidence established that the given action by itself was sufficient to bring about that effect

“Without information that could only have come from someone present at the secret meeting” – is a GMAT Critical question. To answer the question, a candidate can by either finding a piece of evidence that would weaken the argument or 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: A

Explanation: This is a GMAT critical reasoning question. An assumption is an implied hypothesis. So we are looking for something that is implied in the argument. In case it is wrong or maybe disable the argument.

The statement states-
Without information that could only have come from someone present at the secret meeting between the finance minister and the leader of the opposition party, the newspaper story that forced the finance minister to resign could not have been written. No one witnessed the meeting, however, except the minister’s aide. It is clear, therefore, that the finance minister was ultimately brought down, not by any of his powerful political enemies, but by his own trusted aide.

The argument commits which one of the following errors of reasoning?

(A): This is the correct answer choice, because there is an alternate conclusion (that the opposition leader leaked the information) that fits just as well with the evidence.

(B) Don't get lost in the difficult wording in this answer choice. The argument says that the story could not be published without someone to leak the information, but there is no unwarranted assumption present. Do not choose this answer simply because it sounds difficult. In flaw questions, the most complicated answers are often tempting incorrect answers.

(C) There are not two occasions to compare the stimulus, therefore, this answer choice does not fit and is incorrect.

(D) The conditional reasoning of the premises is relevant to the issue: someone had to leak the story to the newspaper and there were only three people there.

(E) This answer does use the word "sufficient," so a test taker who sees the conditional reasoning present in the stimulus may be tempted. However, this answer choice seems to mainly be dealing with the resignation of the minister. The conclusion says the minister was "brought down" and the premises say that the newspaper story "forced the finance minister to resign." In real life, we might question whether the newspaper story was the entire reason, but, in the LSAT world, we can only use the information we are given. In this case, the premise clearly states that the newspaper story forced his resignation, so we must take that as a fact.

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