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555-605 Level|   Weaken|         
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RaviChandra
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For a television program about astrology, investigators went into the 02 Jul 2015, 05:23
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76% (01:46) correct 24% (02:18) wrong based on 1188 sessions

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For a television program about astrology, investigators went into the street and found twenty volunteers born under the sign of Gemini who were willing to be interviewed on the program and to take a personality test. The test confirmed the investigators' personal impressions that each of the volunteers was more sociable and extroverted than people are on average. This modest investigation thus supports the claim that one's astrological birth sign influence one's personality.

Which one of the following, if true, indicates the most serious flaw in the method used by the investigators?


(A) The personality test was not administrated or scored personally by the investigators.

(B) People born under astrological signs other than Gemini have been judged by astrologers to be much less sociable than those born under Gemini.

(C) The personal impressions the investigators first formed of other people have tended to be confirmed by the investigators' later experience of those people.

(D) There is not likely to be a greater proportion of people born under the sign of Gemini on the street than in the population as a whole.

(E) People who are not sociable and extroverted are not likely to agree to participate in such an investigation.
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E
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For a television program about astrology, investigators went into the 09 Nov 2017, 00:40
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the argument is about astrology and personality, and E does not weaken the argument
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For a television program about astrology, investigators went into the 12 Nov 2017, 20:57
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this question is from LSAT; therefore, such question will be unlikely to be one of official gmat questions. Nevertheless, the pattern in E is important, and such pattern does appear in the actual gmat test. That is, E claims that the sample has problems since the beginning, and hence the result cannot be correct.

Using POE, we still choose E.
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For a television program about astrology, investigators went into the 13 Dec 2017, 08:56
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RaviChandra
For a television program about astrology, investigators went into the street and found twenty volunteers born under the sign of Gemini who were willing to be interviewed on the program and to take a personality test. The test confirmed the investigators' personal impressions that each of the volunteers was more sociable and extroverted than people are on average. This modest investigation thus supports the claim that one's astrological birth sign influence one's personality.

Which one of the following, if true, indicates the most serious flaw in the method used by the investigators?

(A) The personality test was not administrated or scored personally by the investigators.

(B) People born under astrological signs other than Gemini have been judged by astrologers to be much less sociable than those born under Gemini.

(C) The personal impressions the investigators first formed of other people have tended to be confirmed by the investigators' later experience of those people.

(D) There is not likely to be a greater proportion of people born under the sign of Gemini on the street than in the population as a whole.

(E) People who are not sociable and extroverted are not likely to agree to participate in such an investigation.


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Conclusion: Your signs influences your personality.
Premise: Twenty volunteers on the street were Geminis and more sociable/extroverted than average

This argument is assuming that there isn't some other reason the people chosen were more sociable/extroverted than average.
---> Was the sample representative of Gemini population in general?

(A) We don't care who scored/administered it, as long as the results are valid.

(B) This is about the judgment of astrologers, which is irrelevant here. We're doing science!

(C) This would prove that the investigators are good judges of character, not that astrology had anything to do with character.

(D) This is irrelevant. The investigators purposely found 20 geminis. It doesn't matter how many of them there were out on the street. If astrology affects personality, they could be the ONLY 20 geminis on the street.

(E) CORRECT. This provides another reason why the sample of people might have been more gregarious than average
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For a television program about astrology, investigators went into the 12 Feb 2018, 10:48
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RaviChandra
For a television program about astrology, investigators went into the street and found twenty volunteers born under the sign of Gemini who were willing to be interviewed on the program and to take a personality test. The test confirmed the investigators' personal impressions that each of the volunteers was more sociable and extroverted than people are on average. This modest investigation thus supports the claim that one's astrological birth sign influence one's personality.

Which one of the following, if true, indicates the most serious flaw in the method used by the investigators?

(A) The personality test was not administrated or scored personally by the investigators.

(B) People born under astrological signs other than Gemini have been judged by astrologers to be much less sociable than those born under Gemini.

(C) The personal impressions the investigators first formed of other people have tended to be confirmed by the investigators' later experience of those people.

(D) There is not likely to be a greater proportion of people born under the sign of Gemini on the street than in the population as a whole.

(E) People who are not sociable and extroverted are not likely to agree to participate in such an investigation.


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All the volunteers belong to Gemini sign.
All volunteers are willing to be interviewed and to take personality test.
Test confirmed volunteers are more sociable & extroverted.
Hence investigators confirmed birth signs influence one's personality.

But there is a serious problem with the subjects investigated. Isn't it a biased group for this personality test? Because the subjects are already sociable & extroverted, they agreed to participate and the opposite group would have not agreed to participate. So it is not the birth sign that influenced their personality. Yayyyyy :lol:
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For a television program about astrology, investigators went into the 12 Feb 2018, 22:37
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The premise claims that People born under the sign of Gemini will be more sociable and extroverted.

The option E says people who are not sociable and extroverted will not participate in investigation. Which weakens the argument, since people who volunteered are all sociable irrespective of the birth sign.

Ans: E
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For a television program about astrology, investigators went into the 23 Jun 2022, 09:31
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RaviChandra
For a television program about astrology, investigators went into the street and found twenty volunteers born under the sign of Gemini who were willing to be interviewed on the program and to take a personality test. The test confirmed the investigators' personal impressions that each of the volunteers was more sociable and extroverted than people are on average. This modest investigation thus supports the claim that one's astrological birth sign influence one's personality.

Which one of the following, if true, indicates the most serious flaw in the method used by the investigators?

(A) The personality test was not administrated or scored personally by the investigators.

(B) People born under astrological signs other than Gemini have been judged by astrologers to be much less sociable than those born under Gemini.

(C) The personal impressions the investigators first formed of other people have tended to be confirmed by the investigators' later experience of those people.

(D) There is not likely to be a greater proportion of people born under the sign of Gemini on the street than in the population as a whole.

(E) People who are not sociable and extroverted are not likely to agree to participate in such an investigation.
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Other - more difficult - flaw could have been that interview didn't consider other people different sign with proportionality tested.

E is straight winner.
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For a television program about astrology, investigators went into the 22 Jan 2023, 07:31
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This question is a classic weaken question. There are multiples ways to undermine an argument among which we can mention *unrepresentative sample or any errors that may appear in data which support the conclusion *.

Premise : investigators went into the street and found twenty volunteers born under the sign of Gemini who were willing to be interviewed on the program and to take a personality test.

Premise : The test confirmed the investigators' personal impressions that each of the volunteers was more sociable and extroverted than people are on average

The conclusion is : one's astrological birth sign influence one's personality. The preceding words clearly show that all that was mentioned in the text is mentioned to claim the final sentence of the stimulus which is therefore the conclusion.

Answer A: one may think that if it’s not investigators who administered the test the data are flawed but thinking that way would be helping the argument which clearly did not state that. No information related to the ability of those who conducted the experiment is provided so we cannot conclude anything about the quality of data. So it neither undermines nor helps the argument. Out!

Answer B : actually this one strengthens the argument. Let’s say this another way: Gemini people are more sociable than any other astronomical signs. We can conclude that the astronomical sign plays one role in some sort on the behavior of people. Ouch! Out!

Answer C : This one is irrelevant because the point of the argument is not the impression investigators have on people but the relation between astrological signs of people and their behavior. Ouch! Out!

Answer D : Still irrelevant friendo. Why? Because the argument talks about the relationship between people behavior and their astronomical signs and not between astrological signs and the proportions in the population.

Answer E: If you made till here you are goat because you are right. This answer simply states that the sample is biased in some sort or unrepresentative of the population. Among Gemini only those who are extroverted and sociable participate. There may be some others Gemini who are not sociable and extroverted but we may never know because they do not participate to the experiment.

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