Cr

[meetgoelabhi]

Defendants who can afford expensive private defense lawyers have a lower conviction rate than those who rely on court-appointed public defenders. This explains why criminals who commit lucrative crimes like embezzlement or insider trading are more successful at avoiding conviction than are street criminals.

The explanation offered above would be more persuasive if which one of the following were true?

(A) Many street crimes, such as drug dealing, are extremely lucrative and those committing them can afford expensive private lawyers.

(B) Most prosecutors are not competent to handle cases involving highly technical financial evidence and have more success in prosecuting cases of robbery or simple assault.

(C) The number of criminals convicted of street crimes is far greater than the number of criminals convicted of embezzlement or insider trading.

(D) The percentage of defendants who actually committed the crimes of which they are accused is no greater for publicly defended than for privately defended defendants

(E) Juries, out of sympathy for the victims of crimes, are much more likely to convict defendants accused of violent crimes than they are to convict defendants accused of “victimless” crimes or crimes against property.

[gmat168]

D is my pick for the answer.

[meetgoelabhi]

can u explain why it is not A?

[gmat168]

I think there are two parts to the question: those who can afford fancy lawyers are less likely to be convicted AND because of this, you need to commit lucrative crimes to hire those lawyers.

A only has the lucrative part and tells you nothing about their conviction rate. To help us know whether it actually strengthens our argument, we need to know the conviction rate. If it's lower than normal, yes, A would be a good answer. If not, it actually weakens our argument.

[Vaithy]

No option gives a concrete answer...
I go for C, for it seems better when compared to other options..

[ani1013]

one more C...

D on the contrary weakens the argument...we want the one which will strengthen the argument..

Official Answer ??

[gmat168]

C is wrong because it talks about concrete numbers. It is a classic trap for GMAT questions. We don't care about concrete numbers; we need to know percentages!

For example, there could be 100 people accused of insider trading, and only 10 convicted. That's 10% conviction rate. For street crimes, there could be 1000 people accused, but only 15 convicted. The number of those convicted for street crimes is still GREATER than embezzlement, but the conviction rate is only 1.5%

That's why D is correct over C.

[freshapproach]

In my opinion also C should be the correct answer, because D seems to be weakening the agrgument.

What is Official Answer.

[gmat168]

I don';t understand why people are saying that D weakens the argument. For the argument to be fair, then we need to establish the fact that the comparison is fair. Are you guys misunderstanding what "no greater" means? It means equal.

To be a fair comparison, we need to establish that those accused of street crimes are not, in percentage comparison, greater than the percentage for embezzlement who actually are guilty. Remember --> accused does not mean convicted!

[meetgoelabhi]

Official Answer is D