GMAT CR Strengthen: Spot the Traps | OG | Drop In Viewership

This GMAT Critical Reasoning Strengthen question begins: "A major network news organization experienced a drop in viewership in the week following the airing of a controversial report on the economy." It is a strong test of whether you evaluate choices by their actual impact on the conclusion or by surface similarity to the passage.

If you are "fine" with Strengthen questions and still not sure how to get better, solve this Easy OG question and check the traps, even if you get the correct answer, since these are the traps that get harder to spot as questions get tougher, and that's when you start getting questions wrong for reasons you can't quite name.

Question

You can refer to the original question in this video:

The situation being analyzed: a network ran a report on the economy. Complaints poured in. Viewership dropped the following week. The network says the two aren't connected, the drop wasn't caused by the backlash. You're asked to find the choice that most strengthens that claim.

Why the Correct Answer Works

The correct choice works by analogy: other major networks saw a similar drop in viewership that same week. If the pattern shows up everywhere, not just at this one network, that points toward some shared, external cause rather than anything specific to this network's report. That's a real strengthener, it gives you new information that makes the network's position more believable. But understanding the choice isn't enough, you have to check its impact on the conclusion. If you eliminate analogy-based choices on reflex, it's time to stop doing that. You can read more about analogy-based choices here.

The Trap That Borrows the Wrong Vocabulary

The incorrect choices are just as instructive. One of them talks about major network news organizations too, but turns out to be irrelevant once you check its impact on the conclusion: these organizations only publicly admit their report caused a viewership drop when they've received complaints about it. Read fast, this feels like it belongs in the same family as the correct answer, same subject, same institutional framing. But look at what it actually claims. It describes when networks choose to attribute a drop to their own report, and says nothing about whether the reactions actually caused this drop. It answers a question about general behavior, not about the reason behind this drop.

The Trap That Reverses Direction

There's a second trap worth naming, because it fails in the opposite direction. One choice points out that the people who complained were regular, loyal viewers of the network. On a first read this can feel supportive considering the regular viewers do not leave easily. But push on it: if loyal viewers were upset enough to complain, that's more reason to think the backlash did drive them away, not less. This choice quietly argues against the network's position while sounding like it's on the network's side.

The two remaining choices don't touch the conclusion at all. Whether this had happened before, and whether viewers rely on the network as their primary economic news source, neither tells you anything about whether this specific reaction caused this specific drop.

The Habit This Builds

What ties this question together is one habit: checking what a choice actually does to the conclusion, rather than reacting to shared vocabulary or a plausible-sounding direction. The only way through is to ask, every time, does this new information make me believe the conclusion more or less, and does it even address the right question.

Solve the question on your own first. The reasoning you apply matters more than the answer you reach. Can you identify which trap is associated with which choice?

Series context

This question is part of the Strengthen Beginner Series, in which easy Official GMAT questions are used not to test what you know, but to reveal how you think. Each question targets a specific reasoning habit, one that shows up in a simple form on easy questions and a complex one on hard questions. If you are getting started with Strengthen questions or if Strengthen questions feel inconsistent for you, this series is built to show you exactly where the process is breaking down.

Read about other Strengthen Traps and Tips:

Take a free diagnostic quiz to see how your own process holds up on questions like this one.