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655-705 (Hard)|   Inference|   Must be True|                  
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Studies of the political orientations of 1,055 college students reveal 09 Aug 2022, 17:39
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jabhatta2

What 'experiences' could be SO DIFFERENT at yale / harvard/ boston vs texas A&M / Florida U/ South carolina university THAT students become MORE LIBERAL in the first case but more conservative in the second case ? What are some examples ?

We all have gone to college / univeristy -- is your experience at University X really so different than my experience at University Y ?

We are students at the end of the day. All universities have a set format -- classroom teaching or practicals followed up by examinations.

What could be SO FUNDAMENTALLY different.
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Thanks for you analysis, jabhatta2.
I'll start by saying that, in my opinion, this problem puts non-American test takers at a relative disadvantage (your quote above is exhibit A), and I hypothesize that this is why the problem was retired from the test.

My interpretation of the passage is that the first sentence describes a phenomenon that I don't find all that surprising (there's an obvious difference in populations between eastern, big-city, private universities and state-supported, southern colleges, so this study has a significant selection bias). The second sentence, by contrast, is where the meat of the study lies: we have two surprising findings here! (i) political orientations were independent of the student's region of origin, and (ii) the trends were much more pronounced in seniors than in beginning students. These two findings demand an explanation, and our job is to figure out which of the answer choices does the best job of explaining these findings.

jabhatta2, could you please elaborate on this comment you made:
jabhatta2
(B) doesnt really touch on why orientations are MORE PRONOUNCED in year 1 vs year 4.

(A) i thought did a better job on giving us a reason why orientations are MORE PRONOUCED (in year 1 vs year 4)

Sure, (B) helps us understand why the plurality of students in an eastern, big-city, private university are liberal but does (B) really explain why orientations are MORE pronounced in year 1 vs year 4 specifically ?

The "STRONGER PRONOUNCIATION" in orientation in year 4 vs year 1 -- i thought was better encapsulated in (A) vs (B) Hence i picked A over B
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I'm particularly interested in your use of the word "encapsulated", as I suspect that this might be what tripped you up.
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Studies of the political orientations of 1,055 college students reveal 09 Aug 2022, 21:11
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jabhatta2
Flaw 2

Quote:

(B) doesnt really touch on why orientations are MORE PRONOUNCED in year 1 vs year 4.

(A) i thought did a better job on giving us a reason why orientations are MORE PRONOUCED (in year 1 vs year 4)

Sure, (B) helps us understand why the plurality of students in an eastern, big-city, private university are liberal but does (B) really explain why orientations are MORE pronounced in year 1 vs year 4 specifically ?

The "STRONGER PRONOUNCIATION" in orientation in year 4 vs year 1 -- i thought was better encapsulated in (A) vs (B)

Hence i picked A over B


Flaw 3 If you select (b) - you are being asked to believe

Quote:

Students have different experiences at Yale / Harvard/ Boston university
vs
If the same student attended Texas A&M / Florida College/ South carolina College

What 'experiences' could be SO DIFFERENT at yale / harvard/ boston vs texas A&M / Florida U/ South carolina university THAT students become MORE LIBERAL in the first case but more conservative in the second case ? What are some examples ?

We all have gone to college / univeristy -- is your experience at University X really so different than my experience at University Y ?

We are students at the end of the day. All universities have a set format -- classroom teaching or practicals followed up by examinations.

What could be SO FUNDAMENTALLY different.
Show more


jabhatta2
Our job is to evaluate what is given and hypothesise based on that. Why does it happen is irrelevant to us. For all we know, it may not really be true in the real life but has been made up for the sake of the argument. In any case, it is not for us to worry about 'why.'

Studies show:
Students in an eastern, big-city, private university are liberal, whereas in a state-supported, southern college, the plurality was conservative.
Orientations were independent of the student's region of origin
Trends were much more pronounced in seniors than in beginning students

So the argument tells us that studies show that irrespective of where the students come from, as they spend time in college, eastern, big-city, private university students become liberal while state-supported, southern college students become conservative.

So option (B) is supported by the study.
B. The political orientations of college seniors depend significantly on experiences they have had while in college.

We know that at the beginning, there are no such trends but as time passes in college, these trends appear. So it must have something to do with the experiences during college.

A. The political orientations of college students are more similar to the political orientations of their parents when the students start college than when the students are seniors.
We have no idea whether children have political orientations similar to their parents (and there is no reason to assume this). The argument does not mention parents at all. Hence, there is no support for this option.

Answer (B)
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Studies of the political orientations of 1,055 college students reveal 10 Aug 2022, 07:37
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avigutman
jabhatta2

The "STRONGER PRONOUNCIATION" in orientation in year 4 vs year 1 -- i thought was better encapsulated in (A) vs (B) Hence i picked A over B


I'm particularly interested in your use of the word "encapsulated", as I suspect that this might be what tripped you up.
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Thank you avigutman -

Below is my reasoning for the above -

As you there are 3 observations per the study (listed as i,ii and iii in screenshot)

I dont see this question as an inference question but instead a 'resolve the paradox question' -- my goal was to pick something that **best** explained all three obsevations (As best as possible)

i got the sense that (A) did a better job explaining certain aspects of observation (iii) than (B) did.

Here's why --

Quote:

  • Observation (iii) is seen occuring consistenly and across large groups of students dependant on if they go one type of university vs another type of university.
  • (A) gives a better reason as to why the (iii) occurs consistenly and across large groups of students
  • (B) does not really explain why this (iii) occurs on a consistent basis and across large groups of students
  • Based on the wording of (B) - i got the sense that each students' experience will be very different -- hence (iii) will NOT BE consistent nor across large groups of students
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Quote:

  • There are people who say A goes against observation (ii).
  • I dont think A goes against observation (ii).
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Hence i went with (A) over (B)
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Studies of the political orientations of 1,055 college students reveal 10 Aug 2022, 12:18
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jabhatta2

I dont see this question as an inference question but instead a 'resolve the paradox question' -- my goal was to pick something that **best** explained all three obsevations (As best as possible)
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This seems reasonable to me, jabhatta2.
jabhatta2
[*] (A) gives a better reason as to why the (iii) occurs consistenly and across large groups of students
[*] (B) does not really explain why this (iii) occurs on a consistent basis and across large groups of students
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This is where you've lost me, jabhatta2. The 'paradox' is this: the trends were much more pronounced in seniors than in beginning students. How does (A) explain this paradox, exactly?
I don't see that (A) explains it at all!
(B) explains it very well. In general, if you have widgets (in this case, students) going into some kind of black box (in this case, university or college) and coming out of that black box different from how they were when they went in (in this case, they have more pronounced trends), then something must have happened inside the black box that caused the change.
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Studies of the political orientations of 1,055 college students reveal 15 Aug 2022, 10:04
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jabhatta2
Flaw 2

Quote:

(B) doesnt really touch on why orientations are MORE PRONOUNCED in year 1 vs year 4.

(A) i thought did a better job on giving us a reason why orientations are MORE PRONOUCED (in year 1 vs year 4)

Sure, (B) helps us understand why the plurality of students in an eastern, big-city, private university are liberal but does (B) really explain why orientations are MORE pronounced in year 1 vs year 4 specifically ?

The "STRONGER PRONOUNCIATION" in orientation in year 4 vs year 1 -- i thought was better encapsulated in (A) vs (B)

Hence i picked A over B


Flaw 3 If you select (b) - you are being asked to believe

Quote:

Students have different experiences at Yale / Harvard/ Boston university
vs
If the same student attended Texas A&M / Florida College/ South carolina College

What 'experiences' could be SO DIFFERENT at yale / harvard/ boston vs texas A&M / Florida U/ South carolina university THAT students become MORE LIBERAL in the first case but more conservative in the second case ? What are some examples ?

We all have gone to college / univeristy -- is your experience at University X really so different than my experience at University Y ?

We are students at the end of the day. All universities have a set format -- classroom teaching or practicals followed up by examinations.

What could be SO FUNDAMENTALLY different.
Show more
I'm late to the party here, but just wanted to add my support for much of what Karishma and Avi have said here.

The short answer to your main question is that it doesn't matter -- we aren't asked to EXPLAIN why that correlation exists. We're given some data, and we have to pick the hypothesis that is best supported by that data. (For more on that, check out this post.)

We can't PROVE that (B) is true, but it's certainly a reasonable hypothesis based on the data. And the good news is that we don't have to come up with any possible reasons to help explain WHY (B) would be the case -- as long as it's consistent with the data, we're good, as Avi has nicely explained.

The problem with (A) is that we have no idea how the students' political orientations relate to those of their parents. For all we know, the exact opposite could be true and the students gravitated towards their parents' views as they got older -- the data could just as easily support either one, and we don't have any evidence pushing us one way or the other.

For the record, I can promise you that a typical college experience at Boston University or Harvard will be WILDLY different than a typical college experience at Texas A&M... but that's not really important in answering this question. ;)

I hope that helps a bit!
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Studies of the political orientations of 1,055 college students reveal 24 Aug 2024, 19:06
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Studies of the political orientations of 1,055 college students revealed that the plurality of students in an eastern, big-city, private university was liberal, whereas in a state-supported, southern college, the plurality was conservative. Orientations were independent of the student's region of origin, and the trends were much more pronounced in seniors than in beginning students.

Which of the following hypotheses is best supported by the observations stated above?

A. The political orientations of college students are more similar to the political orientations of their parents when the students start college than when the students are seniors.
B. The political orientations of college seniors depend significantly on experiences they have had while in college.
C. A college senior originally from the South is more likely to be politically conservative than is a college senior originally from the East.
D. Whether their college is state-supported or private is the determining factor in college students' political orientations.
E. College students tend to become more conservative politically as they become older and are confronted with pressures for financial success.


CR41661.01
Verbal Review 2020 NEW QUESTION
Analysis of the given prompt:

Attachment:
Argument analysis.PNG

Question stem:

Which of the following hypotheses is best supported by the observations stated above?

Question type:

Inference (must be true)

Answer choice analysis:

A. The political orientations of college students are more similar to the political orientations of their parents when the students start college than when the students are seniors.

Analysis of (A): This choice compares political orientations of students with their parents. This orientations similar to parent's when students start college than when they are senior.

Analysis in terms of prompt: If we consider given informations in the given prompt. There is no supportive information about student's parent's political orientation or any comparison between. A is incorrect

B. The political orientations of college seniors depend significantly on experiences they have had while in college.

Analysis of (B): We have some correlation here, senior student's PO (political orientation) depends on his/her experience in college, implying that by time spent in college student tends to change his/her point of view.

Analysis in terms of prompt: We do have some information about trends that that were much more pronounced in seniors than in beginning students. So difference between senior student and beginner student is on his/her experience gained during the college years. This information supported by the prompt, hence B is correct.


C. A college senior originally from the South is more likely to be politically conservative than is a college senior originally from the East.

Analysis of (C): We have comparison here, Senior students from South is more likely conservative than Senior students from East.

Analysis in terms of prompt: This is really tricky answer, if we were not VERY careful while reading the stimulus we could have chosen this answer as correct. This answer choice talks about senior students, conservative POs, and East and South originality. All this information exists in the passage but connected in a different way. We don't have comparison in the given stimulus, moreover it is clearly stated that POs of the students have nothing to do with students region of origin. C is incorrect


D. Whether their college is state-supported or private is the determining factor in college students' political orientations.

Analysis of (D): It states that determining factor about student's PO whether their college is state-supported or private.

Analysis in terms of prompt: So far in the prompt only determining factor of the student's PO is college experience not college type. D is incorrect

E. College students tend to become more conservative politically as they become older and are confronted with pressures for financial success.

Analysis of (E): There is a tendention for students to become more conservative PO, because of pressure for financial success.

Analysis in terms of prompt: We don't have any information about why senior students choose to be conservative or liberal. E is incorrect

B is the answer
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­Absolutely loved the explaination, I was stuck between B & C, which looked far apart, yet I chose C since "it made more sense". OFC, that's not the way to approach an answer choice, but I was struggling with the mental explaination of answer choice B as compared to C.

You had the perfect explaination to clear my head of all of the thoughts I had.

Thanks a lot, kudos! :D
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Studies of the political orientations of 1,055 college students reveal 18 Sep 2024, 02:26
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GMATNinja avigutman KarishmaB

The "trends" were much more pronounced in seniors than in beginning students

Which trends are discussed here? My understanding is 2 trends:
Trend 1 - plurality of students in an eastern, big-city, private university was liberal, whereas in a state-supported, southern college, the plurality was conservative.
Trend 2 - Orientations were independent of the student's region of origin

If we talk about trend 2, we can say that orientations independent of origin were more seen in seniors than in juniors.
We can infer that junior's orientation is MORE dependent of orgin than the senior (We can atleast do comparison), so juniors could be more inclined towards parents (origin) compared to seniors.

Why A is incorrect with this reasoning?
Please help me understand. Thanks!
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Studies of the political orientations of 1,055 college students reveal 12 Oct 2025, 20:24
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Can someone please find flaw in my reasoning -

B - says college seniors (cs) having experience of college while cs is a part of college itself. I rejected this thinking this is a word trap. Argument says experience has made their political orientation okay, but as per B, cs are still part of that experience i.e not being built yet.

(I understand the reasoning given above that why does this stands correct, but why mine is wrong. can someone help please?)
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Studies of the political orientations of 1,055 college students reveal 13 Oct 2025, 00:57
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Hi Samreensa,

If I understand correctly, you are saying that college seniors are still in college and so their political orientation is still being shaped by their experiences and that is why you rejected it (Please let me know if I got it correctly).


If that is the case, I think you may have missed noticing that we are comparing the political orientation of different college students only. The argument does not indicate that this political orientation cannot change further.
Also choice B says "experiences they have had in college", so it talks about the experiences that they already have had since the time they joined college - it does not include any future experiences.



Hope that helps clarify your doubt!
Samreensa
Can someone please find flaw in my reasoning -

B - says college seniors (cs) having experience of college while cs is a part of college itself. I rejected this thinking this is a word trap. Argument says experience has made their political orientation okay, but as per B, cs are still part of that experience i.e not being built yet.

(I understand the reasoning given above that why does this stands correct, but why mine is wrong. can someone help please?)
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