请教lsatCR高手/版主，这个答案是否更好lsat19/s2/Q11

mzyzhu

T19/S2/Q11. If the needle on an industrial sewing machine becomes badly worn, the article being sewn can be ruined. In traditional apparel factories, the people who operate the sewing machines monitor the needles and replace those that begin to wear out. Industrial sewing operations are becoming increasingly automated, however, and it would be inefficient for a factory to hire people for the sole purpose of monitoring needles. Therefore a sophisticated new acoustic device that detects wear in sewing machine needles is expected to become standard equipment in the automated apparel factories of the future.

Which one of the following is most strongly supported by the information above?

(D) The needles of industrial sewing machines wear out at unpredictable rates.

(E) As sewing machine needles become worn, the noise they make becomes increasingly loud.

The answer is D, yet I think E is better.

The passage mentioned “a new sophisticated new ACOUSTIC device” to detect the wear and tear of the machines. E mentioned as the needles wear out, the noise becomes increasingly loud, which can be detected by the new device.

Proponents for D may argue if the needles wear out in synchronization, then why the automated factory needs new devices, just changing the needles in batch. It is rightly so, however, even though D is right, the needles wearing out at unpredictable rate, we still do not know what the acoustic device is used for. Supposing the noise when needles are wearing out is the same as noise of machines in good condition, in no way can the sophisticated ACOUSTIC device distinguish the machine that needs a change from machines in otherwise all equal conditions. For D to be right, it would have to add E as an indispensable condition to link the passage with D.

E doesn’t have such problems. More important, answer E does not exclude the possibility of unpredictable wearing rate, rather E gives us a signal against which to measure, changing the needles of the machine that produces a noise above certain decibel which is supposed to be normal noise.

So, in my perspective, the passage better supports E than D.

However, D is a good assumption

What you guys think?

mindfree

We discussed this problem before. E is not correct as you need to make an additional assumption that the accoustic device is there to detect loud noise. The reality might be that the sewing machine with worn needles starts to make ticking noise (not necessarily loud), or make intermittent noise, or simply sound different from that with good needles. It cannot be safely concluded from the passage that there is loud noise. It is only possible. So E is not supported.

D is right in that it is the simply the reason for using another device to detect worn needles. If D is not true, and needles are worn out predicatably, there is no reason to use additional device at all.

What do you think?

mike1999

You are super, mindfree! I wish I were you .......

mzyzhu

let me think about again, but your explanation does open a new frontier in fron of me.

thank you very much for the time and efforts.

[此贴子已经被作者于2003-6-11 14:37:52编辑过]

mzyzhu

One point with which we agree and you mentioned in the argument, for D to be the right answer, we have to make another assumption that machine makes a different kind of noise when the needls wear out.

so for D to be the right answer, we should assume the sewing meachines make a DIFFERENT noise, whereas for E to be the right answer, we should assume the machine will not make any noise other than LAUD.