Ease Into Prep with a GMAT^® Question of the Day

Identify the Question Stem: The language most strongly supports the argument indicates that this is a Strengthen the Conclusion question.

Deconstruct the Argument: TVs outnumber people in the US! But newer TVs are becoming too expensive, so (the author claims), the trend will reverse itself soon and the US will go back to having more people than TVs.

Pause and State the Goal: On Strengthen questions, your goal is to find something that makes the author's conclusion at least somewhat more likely to be valid. In this case, the author concludes that the trend will reverse itself because TVs are becoming more expensive.

Work from Wrong to Right:
(A) This choice doesn't address buying habits. It could still be the case that people will buy more TVs or it might be that they won't.
(B) The argument doesn't claim anything about the total number of TVs purchased, just that the proportion—the number of TVs vs. the number of residents per household—will decline. Even if people are immigrating to the US, that doesn't indicate anything about the proportion of TVs per household vs. residents per household.
(C) CORRECT. If more people are using non-TV devices, such as tablets, as their primary source of information and entertainment, then it is at least somewhat more likely that the author's conclusion is valid and that the number of TVs per household will again drop below the number of residents per household.
(D) If the cost of TVs declines over time, then the author's argument is weakened, not strengthened.
(E) If anything, this weakens the argument. If TVs are gaining functionality that people currently use in other devices, then maybe they'll be willing to pay more for TVs that have the combined functionality—and then they could avoid buying that other, separate device.

The correct answer is (C).