The Commissioner has Announced that Judge Khalid, Who was on the Seven-Member Panel Appointed to Resolve the Amlec Labor Dispute.

Topic: The commissioner has announced that Judge Khalid, who was on the seven-member panel appointed to resolve the Amlec labor dispute, will have sole responsibility for resolving the Simdon labor dispute. Since in its decision the Amlec panel showed itself both reasonable and fair, the two sides in the Simdon dispute are undoubtedly justified in the confidence they have expressed in the reasonableness and fairness of the arbitrator assigned to their case.

Which one of the following contains flawed reasoning most parallel to that contained in the passage?

(A) Representing the school board, Marcia Barthes presented to the school’s principal a list of recently elected school board members. Since only an elected member of the school board can act as its representative. Ms. Barthes’s name undoubtedly appears on that list.
(B) Alan Caldalf, who likes being around young children, has decided to become a pediatrician. Since the one characteristic common to all good pediatricians is that they like young children, Mr. Caldalf will undoubtedly be a very good pediatrician.
(C) Jorge Diaz is a teacher at a music school nationally known for the excellence of its conducting faculty. Since Mr. Diaz has recently been commended for the excellence of his teaching, he is undoubtedly a member of the school’s conducting faculty.
(D) Ula Borg, who has sold real estate for Arcande Realty for many years, undoubtedly sold fewer houses last year that she had the year before since the number of houses sold last year by Arcande Realty is far lower than the number sold the previous year.
(E) The members of the local historical society unanimously support designating the First National Bank building a historical landmark. Since Evelyn George is a member of that society, she undoubtedly favors according landmark status to the city hall as well.

“The Commissioner has Announced that Judge Khalid, Who was on the Seven-Member Panel Appointed to Resolve the Amlec Labor Dispute.” – this is a GMAT Critical question. This particular GMAT Critical Reasoning topic has been taken from the book ‘ PowerScore's "GMAT Critical Reasoning Bible, 2021 Edition’. In this particular topic, candidates need to choose the option that best suits the passage. GMAT critical reasoning tests the logical and analytical skills of the candidates. Critical reasoning in GMAT requires candidates to find the strengths and weaknesses of the argument, or find the logical flaw in the argument.  The GMAT CR section contains 10 -13 GMAT critical reasoning questions out of 36 GMAT verbal questions.

Answer: D
Explanation:
As per the problem statement, we can deduce the facts:

• 7 member panel of Amlec dispute was reasonable and fair.
• Judge Khalid belonged to the panel.
• So Judge Khalid would be reasonable and fair.

The flaw is that an attribute of the group is assigned to an individual member of the group too.

Hence, the whole group may have been fair but an individual in the group may not be.

Now, let us look at the options one by one:

(A) Representing the school board, Marcia Barthes presented to the school’s principal a list of recently elected school board members. Since only an elected member of the school board can act as its representative. Ms. Barthes’s name undoubtedly appears on that list.
This is not flawed since only an elected member can act as a representative. Marcia acted as a represntative. Hence, Marcia must be an elected member.
Hence, this is valid.
(B) Alan Caldalf, who likes being around young children, has decided to become a pediatrician. Since the one characteristic common to all good pediatricians is that they like young children, Mr. Caldalf will undoubtedly be a very good pediatrician.
Here, Alan likes to be around young children. Liking young children is common to all good paediatricians. Because Caldalf likes children, he has that necessary quality but it may not be sufficient to become a good paediatrician.
(C) Jorge Diaz is a teacher at a music school nationally known for the excellence of its conducting faculty. Since Mr. Diaz has recently been commended for the excellence of his teaching, he is undoubtedly a member of the school’s conducting faculty.
As per the statement, the school has excellent conducting faculty. Mr Diaz, who is a teacher at school is excellent too. Here, we cannot definitely say that he be a part of the conducting faculty. This is a flaw but not the same flaw. We are not assuming that a group character must be applicable to an individual member. We are given that Mr Diaz is excellent. We are assuming that he belongs to that group then.
(D) Ula Borg, who has sold real estate for Arcande Realty for many years, undoubtedly sold fewer houses last year that she had the year before since the number of houses sold last year by Arcande Realty is far lower than the number sold the previous year.
We know that Arcande Realty sold far fewer houses last year. Ula Borg who sells for Arcande must have sold far fewer houses too last year.
The characteristic of the group (all realtors for Arcande) is assumed to be applicable to one member (Ula) too. This is the same flaw as our original argument had.
(E) The members of the local historical society unanimously support designating the First National Bank building a historical landmark. Since Evelyn George is a member of that society, she undoubtedly favors according landmark status to the city hall as well.
Here, members unanimously support. This means that every member does support. Hence we can say that George supports too. There is no flaw here.
Hence, D is the correct answer.

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