A report of a government survey concluded that Center City was among

Question

A report of a government survey concluded that Center City was among the ten cities in the nation with the highest dropout rate from its schools. The survey data were obtained by asking all city residents over the age of 19 whether they were high school graduates and computing the proportion who were not. A city school official objected that the result did not seem accurate according to the school's figures.

The school official can most properly criticize the reasoning by which the survey report reached its result for failure to do which one of the following?

(A) take into account instances of respondent's dropping out that occurred before the respondents reached high school.

(B) ask residents whether they had completed their high school work in fewer than the usual number of years.

(C) distinguish between residents who had attended the city's schools and those who had received their schooling elsewhere.

(D) predict the effect of the information contained in the report on future high school dropout rates for the city.

(E) consider whether a diploma from the city's high schools signaled the same level of achievement over time.

Source  : LSAT PrepTest 20 Q#15

ankujgupta · Answer

Why is C an answer ? Even if a person got schooling from different city, the survey considered only those students over the age of 19 who were not college graduates. Even though they are from different city they will still be college graduates.

B tries to say, that those who were not college graduates over the age of 19 might have completed it in shorter duration. So, its wrong to say that Center city has highest dropout

sayantanc2k · Answer

Option C is alright. If the survey included people who are from other cities (i.e. did schooling in other cities), then it would reflect the drop-out rates of schools in those other cities as well and not just dropout rate of only Center city, biasing the result. The conclusion is about dropout rate in Center city only.

Option B is irrelevant because time to complete college has no relation to dropout rate.

BillyZ · Answer

Always read the question stem before tackling the stimulus. Here we see a golden example of why that’s so important. Just by reading the stem, we know that this question asks for the one choice that the school official could use to identify the flaw in the survey report. So what’s wrong with that survey report? The survey asked all Center City residents over the age of 19 if they were high school graduates. Based on their response, the survey report concluded that the city is among the ten worst cities with respect to the dropout rate from its schools. Do you see the problem? The survey asked all residents over 19, whether or not they actually attended school in the city, if they were grads. What if a significant number of the dropouts moved to the city after dropping out from some other city’s schools? This would change the findings. The results would be different if the methodology employed by the survey took the distinction in (C) into account, and the school official can justifiably criticize the report for failing to do so.

(A) Since the survey report concluded that the city has one of the worst dropout rates from its schools (and not just its high schools), the survey does take into account dropouts that occurred before high school.

(B) The survey report concerned high school dropouts. The existence of over-achievers who finished school more quickly than usual is irrelevant.

(D) and (E) The future effects of the report (D) and the value of the city’s high school diplomas (E) are both outside the scope of the argument.

• Let the question stem guide your work. After reading this stem, we know that there’s a flaw and that it’s in the survey report, so we can focus all of our energy on finding that flaw.

chessassistant · Answer

ALl B,D and E are out of scope, "those who are not" are ambiguous to me. It refers to those who were not highschool graduate or not city citizens, I cannot guess it.

auradediligodo · Answer

Hi everyone,

The situation is the following: CC has a high rate of dropout from its schools. A survey asks people over the age of 19 whether they graduated from high school or not. The city official disagrees based on his data.

Strengthen question

We need to strengthen the City official conclusion.

Option C works really well because it highlights how the survey could have gathered data from people who attended schools outside of City center.
Option A would be tempting if we were talking about just high school dropouts but we are talking about schools dropouts.

Option C

asad9242 · Answer

A report of a government survey concluded that Center City was among the ten cities in the nation with the highest dropout rate from its schools. The survey data were obtained by asking all city residents over the age of 19 whether they were high school graduates and computing the proportion who were not. A city school official objected that the result did not seem accurate according to the school's figures.

The school official can most properly criticize the reasoning by which the survey report reached its result for failure to do which one of the following?

(A) take into account instances of respondent's dropping out that occurred before the respondents reached high school.
Not important.

(B) ask residents whether they had completed their high school work in fewer than the usual number of years.
Not related

(C) distinguish between residents who had attended the city's schools and those who had received their schooling elsewhere.
There can be city residents who have attended school elsewhere and are dropouts, not from city center schools.

(D) predict the effect of the information contained in the report on future high school dropout rates for the city.
Not important.

(E) consider whether a diploma from the city's high schools signaled the same level of achievement over time.
Not related

KarishmaB · Answer

Survey   - Ask all city residents over the age of 19 whether they were high school graduates and computing the proportion who were not. 
(If the city had 100 people, they were all asked whether they completed high school. Say 40 said they did not and 60 did.)

Conclusion  : 
Center City was among the ten cities in the nation with the highest dropout rate from its schools
(It was concluded that the school dropout rate for the city is 40%)

(A) take into account instances of respondent's dropping out that occurred before the respondents reached high school.

It does take into account all school dropouts. Anyone who drops out at any time before completing high school is a school dropout. Whether they dropped out in elementary, middle or high school - anyone who did not complete high school is a school dropout. So they have all been accounted for. At exactly which level they dropped out is irrelevant.

(B) ask residents whether they had completed their high school work in fewer than the usual number of years.

Time taken to complete high school work is irrelevant.

(C) distinguish between residents who had attended the city's schools and those who had received their schooling elsewhere.

Exactly. What if dropout rate is much lower in this city but much higher in a neighboring city and people who study in the neighboring city come here for jobs?
Of the 100 people:
Say 80 people did their schooling from this city and only 20 dropped out (a 25% dropout rate)
So 20 people did their schooling from a neighboring city and all of them dropped out. These people also get counted as dropouts from Center City's schools though that is not true. 
Hence the survey needed to distinguish between residents who had attended the city's schools and those who had received their schooling elsewhere.

(D) predict the effect of the information contained in the report on future high school dropout rates for the city.

Future rates are irrelevant.

(E) consider whether a diploma from the city's high schools signaled the same level of achievement over time.

The point is whether they completed or not. Whether completion has the same value over time is irrelevant.

Answer (C)

A report of a government survey concluded that Center City was among

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