2,500 individuals of voting age were polled and asked where

C.Voters with moderate political views will not vote for candidates who do not express moderate political views.
D. Voters can be highly fickle, changing their political views in a relatively short period of time.
When we negate D : Voters may not be highly fickle, changing their political views in a relatively short period of time.

Conclusion:It follows that these individuals did not accurately describe their political views.
I think negated option D kills the conclusion, so why should we not select D.

The conclusion says that the voters misrepresented themselves. i.e It means to say that although the voters had said that they had moderate political views, they actually had extreme views.

D) Negating this option does not infact kill the conclusion. I can still argue that voters may not have changed in their views, but that does not necessarily mean that they would vote for the candidate with the same views. eg: I may have conservative views but still I might vote for the Liberal candidate because maybe I feel that he is a nice guy.

C on the other hand does not leave room for this argument and hence is the right answer.

Kudos Please... If my post helped.

Could someone provide the negation of E and why it is wrong?

Could someone explain why A is wrong?

Clearly A and C are contenders. I negated A and thought it was ruining conclusion.

If Individuals DO NOT always characterize themselves in keeping with their actual political views.

then may be at poll, they did not accurately describe their opinion in the 1st place.


Any help ?

E - might or might not be true. It is stated that they described themselves supporting X, and in E you are giving a "possible" (one of the many) reason for why they are supporting X.

2,500 individuals of voting age were polled and asked where they stood on the political spectrum. 78% of these individuals described themselves as "moderate" in their political views; however, in the national elections that most closely preceded and followed the poll, over half of the individuals polled voted for candidates far to one end of the political spectrum. It follows that these individuals did not accurately describe their political views.

Which of the following is an assumption on which the above argument relies?
A. Individuals always characterize themselves in keeping with their actual political views.
B. There were no moderate candidates in the national elections preceding and following the poll.
C. Voters with moderate political views will not vote for candidates who do not express moderate political views.
D. Voters can be highly fickle, changing their political views in a relatively short period of time.
E. Many of the polled individuals did not understand what a moderate political view is, and so misdescribed themselves

Can some one please explain why E) is wrong?
I get that the negation of C works in order to answer the Q?

BUt still not convinced why E) is wrong

2,500 individuals of voting age were polled and asked where they stood on the political spectrum. 78% of these individuals described themselves as "moderate" in their political views; however, in the national elections that most closely preceded and followed the poll, over half of the individuals polled voted for candidates far to one end of the political spectrum. It follows that these individuals did not accurately describe their political views.

D. Voters can be highly fickle, changing their political views in a relatively short period of time.


I chose C. but if I change D to this :
D. Voters can not be highly fickle, changing their political views in a relatively short period of time. then this can be a correct option. your View pl

E explains the reason why they were incorrect. We already know that they were incorrectly expressed their view. We want to prove that conclusion is not valid, when you negate the assumption.

I have the same doubt.

Probably the catch in the sentence is the word 'MANY'. If we flip the sentence to read

Some of the polled individuals understood what a a moderate political view is, and so described themselves correctly.

'SOME' can mean any number from 0-2800. If some of these individuals did describe themselves correctly, it is likely that the 'others' did not, thus the argument can still hold ground.

Please correct me if you see any fault in my thinking process.

Only the option C does the intended job. Every other option is either weakening the conclusion or resolving the paradox.

Conclusion: these individuals did not accurately describe their political views.
There are a few assumptions that could have worked - 1. 2500 is big enough a sample. 2. There was nothing that could have changed the voter's mind...

A. Individuals always characterize themselves in keeping with their actual political views.
This is actually Weakening the conclusion.

B. There were no moderate candidates in the national elections preceding and following the poll.
Explaining the reason for shift in votes. Therefore, this option is Resolving the paradox and hence weakening the conclusion again.

C. Voters with moderate political views will not vote for candidates who do not express moderate political views.
Negation Approves this option.

D. Voters can be highly fickle, changing their political views in a relatively short period of time.
Providing the alternate explanation. Therefore, this option is Resolving the paradox and hence weakening the conclusion again.

E. Many of the polled individuals did not understand what a moderate political view is, and so misdescribed themselves.
This option is again Resolving the Paradox. We need an option that would bridge the gap between premise and conclusion; whereas, this option is providing a reason for this disparity in result.

I guess that makes sense but im not sure of what should be the opposite of "many"? Should it be "most" (51-100) in that case its opposite will be will be less than half ie "0-50"
Yes in that case, the negation less than half did not understand the meaning of moderate and hence misdescribed themselves. Conclusion does not break down. Hence cannot be the answer.
HOw is the opposite of many "51-100" = some "1-100"
opposite of some/at least one "1-100" can be NONE (0) or NOT ALL "0-99"
Please correct me if I am wrong
_________________

"Many" is a very ambiguous word quite like "Few". "Many" basically means Majority and majority is itself a very ambiguous thing. For instance, in a survey of 1000 people if everyone has a different view save for 10 individuals, those 10 make the majority, and hence can be termed as many, even though they represent only 0.1% of the total survey pool.

Therefore, Many is not equal to Most. Opposite of "Many" is "Not Many".
BTW, Some = 1 to All
Most = 51% to 100%
Therefore, Opposite of Most Can Not be Some because Most is a subset of Some.

Conclusion:These individuals did not accurately describe their political views

How is the author so sure that the individuals actually did not accurately describe their political views?--Because he expects :Voters with moderate political views will not vote for candidates who do not express moderate political views. That's the assumption.Hence C.

Press Kudos if that was helpful.

KAPLAN OFFICIAL EXPLANATION

Identify the Question Type:

The words, "Which of the following is an assumption…?" indicate that this is an Assumption question. Plan on untangling the stimulus by identifying the conclusion and evidence of the argument, and then determining the key assumption that ties them together.

Untangle the Stimulus:

The conclusion is found in the last sentence, cued by the keywords "It follows that": These individuals must have misrepresented their political views. The author's evidence is that these people said that they are "moderate," but then voted for an extreme (non-moderate) candidate.

Predict the Answer:

The assumption connects the evidence and conclusion. It is something that the author left out but must believe to be true, for the conclusion to follow from the evidence. Here, the evidence is that people said they were moderate, but voted for a non-moderate candidate. In order to conclude that voters misrepresented their political views, the author must assume that a moderate voter would only vote for a moderate candidate.

Evaluate the Choices:

(C) is a close match for the prediction arrived at in Step 3. (C) is the answer.

(A) deals only with whether people's views are what they say they are. But the author doesn't have to assume that people always characterize themselves correctly. Even if they sometimes don't, the question is whether their voting choice can determine whether they characterized themselves accurately. (A) doesn’t address this and must be eliminated.

(B) is contradicted by the stimulus, which says half of the individuals voted for candidates far to one end of the spectrum. That means the other half voted for candidates in the middle. Eliminate (B).

(D) is not something the author must assume. The author is arguing that people misrepresented their views, as evidenced by the fact that they voted for candidates with views other than their own. The author is not assuming these voters changed their views at all. Eliminate (D).

(E) is not something the author must assume. The author simply argues that the people polled “did not accurately describe their political views.” He doesn't have to assume that this is because they didn’t understand the question in the poll. The author could be open to other reasons why they were inaccurate in describing their views. The question is, does the fact that they voted for candidates with different views prove that they described themselves inaccurately? (E) doesn't address this and must be eliminated.

TAKEAWAY: Be very clear on the evidence and conclusion of the argument, and stick to the connection between them. Choices that are incorrect because they are irrelevant to the argument are quite common and can be easily spotted by having a good paraphrase of the argument.

On practicing CR (Assumption) Questions, lately i understood the following points

1. Conclusion of the statement is always TRUE
2. If Conclusion is considered TRUE, we must choose an option that supports conclusion as TRUE
That implies, If the option is NEGATED ---> conclusion gets DESTROYED

here in this Question 78% of 2500 individuals (1950 individuals) described themselves as "moderate" & we do not have info on rest 550 people

Conclusion: these individuals (1950) did not accurately describe their political views.

Now

Option (A) Individuals (2500) always characterize themselves in keeping with their actual political views. - generalizing over entire population

Option (B) There were no moderate candidates in the national elections preceding and following the poll. --> out of scope, since it is speaking regarding candidates not voters

Option (C) Voters with moderate political views (1950) will not vote for candidates who do not express moderate political views.

Also, if Option C implies, if the conclusion is true, Option C has to be true

Hence if Option C is negated, conclusion Destroys

Option (D) Voters (2500) can be highly fickle, changing their political views in a relatively short period of time. --> generalized statement

Option (E) Many (?%) of the polled individuals (2500) did not understand what a moderate political view is, and so misdescribed themselves. --> generalized statement

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