QUESTION TYPE: Weaken – Exception
CONCLUSION: The number of North Americans interested in art history as a career has declined in the last four years.
REASONING: The number of applicants to art history Ph.D. programs has declined over the past four years.
ANALYSIS: Be sure you know exactly what the conclusion says. Otherwise answers D and E will be tricky to eliminate. The conclusion is about the attractiveness of careers in art history, not the attractiveness of art history Ph.D. programs. And it is specific to North Americans.
___________
- This provides an alternate explanation for the smaller numbers.
- CORRECT. Who cares how old they are? The main point is that there are fewer applicants.
- If we can’t trust the data, we can’t make a conclusion.
- Students could therefore be interested in an art history career, and see a Ph.D. as a waste of time.
- The conclusion is specifically about North Americans. If this answer choice were true, then the number of North American applicants could have stayed constant: perhaps only applications from elsewhere have declined.