The radio station claims that its new format is popular wi

Question

The radio station claims that its new format is popular with listeners because more than three-quarters of the listeners who call in requests to the station say they are pleased with the format. This, however, is hardly conclusive. It would be like trying to determine whether a political candidate is popular with voters by interviewing only those people who have already decided to vote for the candidate.

The argument proceeds by

(A) concluding that an inference is flawed on the grounds that it is based on a survey conducted by a biased party

(B) referring to an inference that is clearly flawed in order to undermine an analogous inference

(C) questioning the legitimacy of an inference by proposing a more reasonable inference that could be drawn from the evidence

(D) providing a direct counterexample to a conclusion in order to show that the conclusion is false

(E) claiming that an inference leads to a contradiction in order to show that the inference is unreasonable

LSAT

chetan2u · Answer

The radio station claims that its new format is popular with listeners because more than three-quarters of the listeners who call in requests to the station say they are pleased with the format. This, however, is hardly conclusive. It would be like trying to determine whether a political candidate is popular with voters by interviewing only those people who have already decided to vote for the candidate.

The argument proceeds by

(A) concluding that an inference is flawed on the grounds that it is based on a survey conducted by a biased party
  close butter trap the argument never talks of survey by biased party but people responding in a biased manner

(B) referring to an inference that is clearly flawed in order to undermine an analogous inference
  inference from voting is clearly biased as questions are posed 2 people who would have voted to that person, however in the initial analogy, it is the people themselves who are calling up.... Correct

(C) questioning the legitimacy of an inference by proposing a more reasonable inference that could be drawn from the evidence
  proposed is an analogy

(D) providing a direct counterexample to a conclusion in order to show that the conclusion is false
 it is not a counter example but an analogy

(E) claiming that an inference leads to a contradiction in order to show that the inference is unreasonable
 wrong

B

kittle · Answer

Key thing to note in this question is that "counter example" is different from an "analogy"

thelastskybender · Answer

(A) concluding that an inference is flawed on the grounds that it is based on a survey conducted by a biased party

(B) referring to an inference that is clearly flawed in order to undermine an analogous inference     
  
(C) questioning the legitimacy of an inference by proposing a more reasonable inference that could be drawn from the evidence

(D) providing a direct counterexample to a conclusion in order to show that the conclusion is false

(E) claiming that an inference leads to a contradiction in order to show that the inference is unreasonable

Hoehenheim · Answer

Hi there  chetan2u

I can't yet understand why A was eliminated.
"whether a political candidate is popular with voters by interviewing only those people who have already decided to vote for the candidate"

Doesn't this statement indicate the bias of the voters towards the candidate? And shouldn't people responding in a biased manner constitue a biased party?

Ale300503 · Answer

Both A) and B) should be correct.
Both samples are statistically biased and not random, which is what the two analogies have in common.

DmitryFarberMPrep · Answer

Answer choice A is describing something that never happened. First, keep in mind that the conclusion the author is attacking is the one about the radio station. The political part is just a made-up example to support their point. So how did the radio station come to its conclusion? By judging from who called in. There's no mention of a survey, whether by a biased party (the radio station) or someone else (a market research company, etc.).

Even if we did want to point out flaws in the example case, notice that we're never told who's conducting this hypothetical survey, either. Sure, the responders may be biased, but that's not what A says. (And a survey isn't wrong because the respondents are biased--we want to find out what they think, biases and all!)

Finally (and this may be the most important point), we can't choose A just because  we  think bias is involved. The question is asking how the argument proceeds, so we need to address what the  author  does. Since they never directly say that the surveyors are biased, that can't be how the argument proceeds. However, they do directly use a flawed example to show why the original argument is wrong, so B works.

The radio station claims that its new format is popular wi

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The radio station claims that its new format is popular wi

Prep Toolkit

615 to 715 in 15 Days (Ria's Strategies)

More than Quant/Verbal Abilities: Speed vs. Accuracy

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From 555 to 765: 210-point Improvement

Perfect 805 Score Debrief by Julia

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