One interesting lesson from choice (C) here is that it fits a particular type of correct Strengthen answer: the "removes a potential flaw" answer.

If you look what's going on in the argument, telephone polls seem to have one particular advantage over in-person polls: Reform voters are more likely to express their true feelings in telephone interviews. So the conclusion is to use only telephone polls. But we really only have that one data point on telephone polls: there could be all kinds of problems with them (does an appropriate cross-section of the electorate answer their phones? do Conservative voters give *their* true feelings in them?)


(C) proposes another new flaw (what if people give their opinions, but then don't actually vote?) and then removes that flaw by saying it's not the case. That helps to Strengthen the argument mainly by removing one potential flaw the argument could have had. Often these are pretty subtle and harder to recognize because they don't quite advance the argument in the way some Strengthen answers do, but if you're aware of that "removes the flaw" answer type, you can be much more likely to notice it if it comes up.
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The passage argues that using telephone polls would yield more accurate results than in-person polls because Reform party supporters are more willing to express their opinions. To support this we can show that this logic is correct, and we can also show that the Conservative party supporters would also prefer (or respond similarly) to the telephone polls. We'll look for our inferred answer, a Precise approach.

(C) directly addresses the accuracy of telephone polls and is our answer.
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In Country X's last election, the Reform Party beat its main opponent, the Conservative Party, although pollsters, employing in-person interviews shortly before the vote, had projected a Conservative Party victory. Afterwards, the pollsters determined that, unlike Conservative Party supporters, Reform Party supporters were less likely to express their party preference during in-person interviews than they were during telephone interviews. Therefore, using only telephone interviews instead would likely result in more accurate projections for the next election.

Type- strengthen
Core- using only telephone interviews instead would likely result in more accurate projections for the next election.

A. The number of voters in Country X's next election will be significantly larger than the number of voters in the last election.- irrelevant
B. The Conservative Party will win the next election.- irrelevant
C. For each person interviewed in telephone polls before the next election, pollsters will be able to reasonably determine the likelihood of that person voting.- Correct, the earlier system of the in-person interview was shortly before the vote but now in telephone polls, there is a possibility that the person interviewed might not turn up to vote on election day. Thus, this statement will strengthen our case.
D. People who expressed no party preference during the in-person interviews shortly before Country X's last election did not outnumber the people who expressed a preference for the Conservative Party.- irrelevant, we are not concerned about the people who did no express any preference
E. In the next election, pollsters will be able to conduct more in-person interviews than telephone interviews.- irrelevant

Answer C
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given conclusion ;
Therefore, using only telephone interviews instead would likely result in more accurate projections for the next election.

option C ;
For each person interviewed in telephone polls before the next election, pollsters will be able to reasonably determine the likelihood of that person voting.
this option is in line with the argument

Telephone interview gives exact result than in-person interview.
So, in next election this practice will help the pollster to determine which party will win.

Answer is C

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The argument is that using telephone ONLY interviews instead of in-person interviews before the vote would yield more accurate projections.
This assumes that the reform supporters would then be more likely to express their opinion on who they are going to vote for - the whole reason why telephone interviews are suggested in the first place.

We are asked to strengthen the argument
A is incorrect as we don't care about the total size of the voting population, we only care that we yield accurate results. Eliminate
B is obviously incorrect - this is an opinion.
C. If the interviewee isn't able to determine whether someone will likely vote then telephone only interviews would not yield more accurate results. Therefore C strengthens the argument, since it is accepted as given, by eliminating any doubt that telephone interviews won't yield more accurate results.
D tries to trick the reader into thinking that if the people who did not express a party preference outnumbered the people who did then it would make more sense to conduct telephone interviews. However, we know that the reform party received the majority vote otherwise they wouldn't have won, therefore, since the premises state that Reform supporters don't typically express an opinion, D runs counter to the evidence.

D did trick me into thinking it was a defender type assumption and I ended up over inferring initially when I answered this.
E is incorrect because it is besides the fact. The argument is concerned with the accuracy of telephone interviews. We know the ONLY telephone interviews will be conducted, so we need some assurance they'll be accurate. Eliminate

VeritasPrepBrian - Wouldn't mind your or DavidTutorexamPAL s view on why D is incorrect for further learning?
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Hey dcummins,
IMO the simplest way not to get tripped up by (D) is to eliminate it as 'irrelevant to the argument': since the argument is basically 'phone interviews are better because they provide more reliable info on Reform party members', and since (D) doesn't impact phone interviews' efficacy at all, it should immediately be marked as 'suspicious' and examined in detail only if there is no 'obvious' answer.
If you do end up analyzing (D), then as (D) is a bit reminiscent of DS 'range' questions a good tactic is to look at the extremes of the range. If 50% expressed no preference and 50% preferred Conservative, what would the impact on the argument be? If the ratio was 10% to 90%, what would the impact on the argument be? Very unclear at best, and as you mention possibly counter to the information present in the question stem. Another way to think about this: what additional assumptions would you have to make in order for (D) to strengthen the original argument? Anything 'nontrivial'? Not our answer.
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Thank you for the extremely clear explanation David. Really appreciated.

I'm in the processing of reviewing errors, so sometimes I get tripped over the same train of thinking, particularly with CR!
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Conclusion: TI wiill result in accurate prediction of who is going to vote for which party.

A- out of scope, number of voters increase, doses not strengthen the conclusion
B: ok, good for the Conservative party, nothing to do with conclusion
C: yes, they identify who is going to vote for whom - strengthener
D: similar to A, talking about numbers
E: nothing to do with conclusion

Here is my 2 cents for eliminating D:

we want to prove that telephone interviews will be accurate because we would have a more accurate response for Reform Party.

Then D has to have something related to accuracy or Reform Party to make it a correct answer.

D. People who expressed no party preference during the in-person interviews shortly before Country X's last election did not outnumber the people who expressed a preference for the Conservative Party.

Here, D doesn't have anything to do with Reform Party, not to mention that it is even not related to accuracy. Some people might argue that "people who expressed no party preference" could be representative of Reform Party. However, there are still people who actually just don't have any preference! Therefore, D doesn't have anything to do with Reform Party nor with accuracy of telephone interviews.
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The conclusion claimed that telephonic interview gives more accurate result than in person interview. Arguement says party supporters did express their preference during in-person interview.

Job is to finding supporting to the argument.

A. No information about party supporter preference. It says about number of voters.
B. Not related with with interview process or with the question stem.
C. Yes, It says for next election pollsters have confidence on telphonic interview to forecast more accurate likelihood.
D. Irrelevant.
E. Is not related with argument and question stem.

Ans. C.
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Question type : Support

P : Reform party beat Conservative party unlikely with the result of the poll
P : it seems that, advocates of Reform party less likely to express their preference during person interview than telephone interview.
C : using telephone interview will be more accurate

A : OOS (number of voters does not matter)
B : OOS (who wins does not care)
C : Correct (if this is true, we can be accurate in next poll)
D : OOS (no party preference is not what we want to know)
E : OOS (more in person interview is not what we are talking about)

Conclusion: using only telephone interviews instead would likely result in more accurate projections for the next election (b/c more Reform Party voters were less likely to express their party preference during in person interview than they were during telephone interviews).
Questions: they’re less likely to do in-person interviews than they were during telephone interviews, but are they actually going to do telephone interviews? Being less likely to do something, doesn’t auto make you do the other thing. Are the C party supporters going to vote over the telephone? What if the potential increase in Reform party supporters is offset by even more of a decrease by the C party supporters.

Which of the following statements, if true, would most support the argument in the passage?

A. The number of voters in Country X's next election will be significantly larger than the number of voters in the last election.
This doesn’t give us any more info than we have. Sure, the population size is greater, but how do we know people are actually going to vote.

B. The Conservative Party will win the next election.
This one was a strange choice. But looking back, it’s irrelevant. The conclusion is using a certain method to vote (i.e., telephone interviews) over another method (i.e., in-person interviews) would likely result in more accurate projections for the next election. Who cares what happens after the fact? We want to know the lead up and how that accurately reflects the results of the election.

C. For each person interviewed in telephone polls before the next election, pollsters will be able to reasonably determine the likelihood of that person voting.
Wow, this one is painfully obvious but not at the same time. Basically, we need to break it down one step before thinking the above (i.e., is the C party more likely to vote). This answer choice states are people even going to vote at all. Sure, the Reform party could be more likely to express their preference via the use of telephone interviews (over in-person interviews), but are they even going to vote ONCE THEY DO PROVIDE THAT PREFERENCE? (ty VeritasPrepBrian for the clear explanation)

D. People who expressed no party preference during the in-person interviews shortly before Country X's last election did not outnumber the people who expressed a preference for the Conservative Party.
This doesn’t change the conclusion. We want to focus on the method and the impact of that method. It could go either way with this choice.

E. In the next election, pollsters will be able to conduct more in-person interviews than telephone interviews.
This could almost weaken the argument. Why do telephone interview then?

In Country X's last election, the Reform Party beat its main opponent, the Conservative Party, although pollsters, employing in-person interviews shortly before the vote, had projected a Conservative Party victory. Afterwards, the pollsters determined that, unlike Conservative Party supporters, Reform Party supporters were less likely to express their party preference during in-person interviews than they were during telephone interviews. Therefore, using only telephone interviews instead would likely result in more accurate projections for the next election.

-Reform Party beat Conservatives
-Pollsters projected a Conservative victory before the vote
-Pollsters found out Reform Party supports were less likely to express party preference in-person than during phone
-Conclusion is that using ONLY telephone interviews would likely result in more accurate projections next time

I don’t think this comes up at all in this problem, but note that there still seems to be a # of assumptions that the author is making …e.g. in-person/telephone are the only ways to survey people (what about mail?)…it also seems to have forgotten about the # of people who don’t survey at all…surely a good chunk of those people vote so how would the projections account for them? Strengtheners could address these areas too.

Which of the following statements, if true, would most support the argument in the passage?

A. The number of voters in Country X's next election will be significantly larger than the number of voters in the last election.
-I had a hard time eliminating this one because it’s actually correct and does support the argument…if you have knowledge of statistics, a larger sample certainly increases the accuracy of an estimate
-however, the issue with this choice is it just tells us there will be more voters
-we need to support the idea that using ONLY TELEPHONE INTERVIEWS will increase the ACCURACY …this doesn’t do that
B. The Conservative Party will win the next election.
-irrelevant…all this might do is validate the projections after the fact, but this can go both ways…what if the polls had indicated that the Reformers will win and they did go on to win?
C. For each person interviewed in telephone polls before the next election, pollsters will be able to reasonably determine the likelihood of that person voting.
-Correct
-the accuracy of the projections are determined by the alignment between the survey and the actual results…if people survey and don’t vote, the accuracy of the projections diminish
D. People who expressed no party preference during the in-person interviews shortly before Country X's last election did not outnumber the people who expressed a preference for the Conservative Party.
-last election doesn’t matter
E. In the next election, pollsters will be able to conduct more in-person interviews than telephone interviews.
-this weakens the argument…now the phone interviews would be smaller so perhaps aren’t accurate. At minimum, this doesn’t go in the direction we need it to go
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