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- Wed Apr 27, 2016 10:07 am
#23481
Complete Question Explanation
Weaken. The correct answer choice is (D)
The language in the question stem, "most seriously CALLS INTO QUESTION," indicates that this is a Weaken question where one answer choice will weaken the suggestion and the other four will probably either strengthen or be neutral — we rarely are required to evaluate the relative degree of weakening provided by two or more answers. Therefore, understanding the suggestion is the critical first step.
Here, "some" have proposed that the cost of these increasingly expensive academic journal subscriptions be reduced by filtering out those journals which are cited less frequently among all journals. This may sound reasonable at first, but we know that there is a weakness. In terms of critically analyzing the situation, we should consider some premises to be more suspect than others. Here, we can't really dispute that costs are rising and libraries will have to be choosier, so the method of choosing remains as the fishiest element in the argument.
If we are familiar with the world of academia, we can be suspicious about relying on frequency of citation as a measurement of influence. With so much riding on one's reputation for brilliant originality within a particular discipline, many academics succumb to the pressures of "playing games" with the currency of their vocation: ideas. As a result, certain schools or publications or even individual thinkers may remain well-regarded long after the well of wisdom has run dry. On the flip side of the coin, certain schools or publications or people may not receive credit for important insights simply because they were not considered among the select few capable of such genius. So, we are looking for an answer choice that, if true, would go to the heart of such a situation, in which a stodgy inertia basks in the faint glow of dying embers even as it throws sand at emerging flames of prodigious ingenuity.
Answer choice (A): Nonacademic readership rates are far out of the scope of our task, which is to determine what might harm the proposal to select subscriptions on the basis of citation count. We especially are not interested in how nonacademic readership CAN be gauged. This speculative answer choice should be discarded quickly because it is neutral.
Answer choice (B): This answer choice should be discarded quickly because the length of an article is completely independent of how many citations it contains — a point that every beginning law student soon discovers. The suggestion in the stimulus is concerned with using citations as the only filter, so inter-discipline article length could not matter less.
Answer choice (C): This is not correct because the stimulus has confined the discussion to "ACADEMIC libraries used only by ACADEMIC researchers" and their ability to supply useful journals to such researchers. This should be a quickly discarded loser because it is neutral.
Answer choice (D): This is the correct answer choice. Here we have something that goes to the heart of the filtering criterion. If this answer choice was true, then a library that subscribed to frequently-cited journals only would fail to carry some journals that were useful and influential but were not cited as such. Furthermore, this answer choice would make sense within our analysis of academia. It is easy to imagine some well-established professor at Big Name University swiping the ideas of some brilliant upstart out of an obscure journal and passing them off as his or her own. Such sinister designs are not necessary; the Big Name professor might want to give credit to the brilliant upstart but might fear the repercussions from colleagues who would have disdain for anyone perusing such a lowly publication. The latter is what this answer choice provides us, so we can have confidence that it is a strong contender.
Answer choice (E): We know that the correct answer will discuss citations. As long as influence and citations are connected, we are fine. With this answer choice, all the important arguments of a field could take place throughout twenty different journals. As long as all the citations give credit where credit is due, a library would be wisely saving money if it cancelled subscriptions to all the journals below the top twenty. This would not weaken the suggestion because it is neutral.
Weaken. The correct answer choice is (D)
The language in the question stem, "most seriously CALLS INTO QUESTION," indicates that this is a Weaken question where one answer choice will weaken the suggestion and the other four will probably either strengthen or be neutral — we rarely are required to evaluate the relative degree of weakening provided by two or more answers. Therefore, understanding the suggestion is the critical first step.
Here, "some" have proposed that the cost of these increasingly expensive academic journal subscriptions be reduced by filtering out those journals which are cited less frequently among all journals. This may sound reasonable at first, but we know that there is a weakness. In terms of critically analyzing the situation, we should consider some premises to be more suspect than others. Here, we can't really dispute that costs are rising and libraries will have to be choosier, so the method of choosing remains as the fishiest element in the argument.
If we are familiar with the world of academia, we can be suspicious about relying on frequency of citation as a measurement of influence. With so much riding on one's reputation for brilliant originality within a particular discipline, many academics succumb to the pressures of "playing games" with the currency of their vocation: ideas. As a result, certain schools or publications or even individual thinkers may remain well-regarded long after the well of wisdom has run dry. On the flip side of the coin, certain schools or publications or people may not receive credit for important insights simply because they were not considered among the select few capable of such genius. So, we are looking for an answer choice that, if true, would go to the heart of such a situation, in which a stodgy inertia basks in the faint glow of dying embers even as it throws sand at emerging flames of prodigious ingenuity.
Answer choice (A): Nonacademic readership rates are far out of the scope of our task, which is to determine what might harm the proposal to select subscriptions on the basis of citation count. We especially are not interested in how nonacademic readership CAN be gauged. This speculative answer choice should be discarded quickly because it is neutral.
Answer choice (B): This answer choice should be discarded quickly because the length of an article is completely independent of how many citations it contains — a point that every beginning law student soon discovers. The suggestion in the stimulus is concerned with using citations as the only filter, so inter-discipline article length could not matter less.
Answer choice (C): This is not correct because the stimulus has confined the discussion to "ACADEMIC libraries used only by ACADEMIC researchers" and their ability to supply useful journals to such researchers. This should be a quickly discarded loser because it is neutral.
Answer choice (D): This is the correct answer choice. Here we have something that goes to the heart of the filtering criterion. If this answer choice was true, then a library that subscribed to frequently-cited journals only would fail to carry some journals that were useful and influential but were not cited as such. Furthermore, this answer choice would make sense within our analysis of academia. It is easy to imagine some well-established professor at Big Name University swiping the ideas of some brilliant upstart out of an obscure journal and passing them off as his or her own. Such sinister designs are not necessary; the Big Name professor might want to give credit to the brilliant upstart but might fear the repercussions from colleagues who would have disdain for anyone perusing such a lowly publication. The latter is what this answer choice provides us, so we can have confidence that it is a strong contender.
Answer choice (E): We know that the correct answer will discuss citations. As long as influence and citations are connected, we are fine. With this answer choice, all the important arguments of a field could take place throughout twenty different journals. As long as all the citations give credit where credit is due, a library would be wisely saving money if it cancelled subscriptions to all the journals below the top twenty. This would not weaken the suggestion because it is neutral.
