Fishing columnist: When an independent research firm compared the five

Question

Fishing columnist: When an independent research firm compared the five best-selling baits, it found that Benton baits work best for catching trout. It asked a dozen top anglers to try out the five best-selling baits as they fished for speckled trout in a pristine northern stream, and every angler had the most success with a Benton bait. These results show that Benton is the best bait for anyone who is fishing for trout.

Each of the following describes a flaw in the reasoning in the fishing columnist’s argument EXCEPT:

(A) The argument overlooks the possibility that some other bait is more successful than any of the five best-selling baits.
(B) The argument overlooks the possibility that what works best for expert anglers will not work best for ordinary anglers.
(C) The argument overlooks the possibility that the relative effectiveness of different baits changes when used in different locations.
(D) The argument overlooks the possibility that two best-selling brands of bait may be equally effective.
(E) The argument overlooks the possibility that baits that work well with a particular variety of fish may not work well with other varieties of that fish.

Bunuel · Accepted Answer

EXPLANATION FROM Fox LSAT

I love questions that ask us to critique marketing bullshit. True, this question is from a “fishing columnist,” but that doesn’t mean it’s not essentially an advertisement for Benton bait. And it sure as hell sounds like an advertisement. It’s got the pseudo-scientific “independent research firm” and the pseudo scientific “experiment” using tiny and possibly unrepresentative samples. I see two problems with the logic here:

First, how can the study use “top anglers” as its subjects, and then conclude that what’s best for these experts must also be good for “anyone fishing for
trout”? Isn’t it possible that what’s best for the experts would actually be useless for the typical weekend schlub? 
 
  Second, how can the study compare only “the five best-selling baits” and then conclude that the one that did the best is “the best bait”? Suppose the study compared “the five best-selling cars” based on about five seconds of half-assed Internet research, I’m going to say that in 2011 the five best sellers were the Ford F-150, the Chevy Silverado, the Toyota Camry, the Nissan Altima, and the Ford Escape. Suppose the Camry performed the best out of those five. Does
that prove that the Camry is the best car in the world? Are you nuts?

The question turns out to be a “flaw… EXCEPT” question, which means that four of the answers describe flaws in the logic and one answer does  not  describe a flaw. In other words, the correct answer here will either be something the argument  did not do , or something that the argument  did, but isn’t a logical flaw.  Let’s see what we can find.

A) Yes, the argument definitely did this. See my example about cars above.

B) Yes, the argument definitely did this as well. See my complaint about weekend schlubs, above.

C) Yes. I didn’t notice this, but the argument said the “experiment” was carried out in “pristine northern streams,” which means its results might not be valid at all for fishermen who are trying to pull trout out of some smelly urban canal. Good point. I wish I had caught that one.

D) I have a hard time seeing how the argument could fairly be accused of doing this. The evidence is, “Each angler had the most success with a Benton bait,” and the conclusion is, “Therefore Benton is the best bait.” I don’t think it’s relevant whether or not two different baits were tied for most popular—even if that’s true, it doesn’t ruin the conclusion that Benton baits are the best. I think this is probably the answer.

E) Yes. I didn’t catch this either, but the so-called experiment was on “speckled trout,” while the conclusion was about the presumably much broader category of “trout.” Maybe what works on speckled trout is totally worthless on, for example, rainbow trout. Good point. A, B, C, and E all point out flaws in the horrible bullshit fake-ass study, and D does not.

D is our answer.

moukthikavasa · Answer

Fishing columnist: When an independent research firm compared the five best-selling baits, it found that Benton baits work best for catching trout. It asked a dozen top anglers to try out the five best-selling baits as they fished for speckled trout in a pristine northern stream, and every angler had the most success with a Benton bait. These results show that Benton is the best bait for anyone who is fishing for trout.

Each of the following describes a flaw in the reasoning in the fishing columnist’s argument EXCEPT:

(A) The argument overlooks the possibility that some other bait is more successful than any of the five best-selling baits INCORRECT.
(B) The argument overlooks the possibility that what works best for expert anglers will not work best for ordinary anglers.INCORRECT
(C) The argument overlooks the possibility that the relative effectiveness of different baits changes when used in different locations.INCORRECT
(D) The argument overlooks the possibility that two best-selling brands of bait may be equally effective.CORRECT
(E) The argument overlooks the possibility that baits that work well with a particular variety of fish may not work well with other varieties of that fish.INCORRECT

RanonBanerjee · Answer

IMO, B is correct answer. 
Because the final conclusion says that, Benton is the best bait for"anyone", but the try out was done only with top anglers.

C was also close, because the try out was only carried out in northern stream, but C is not right because our final conslusion doesn't specify anything about location, but person catching a trout.

Posted from my mobile device

SrijanSwaroop · Answer

Can anyone explain that how option "C" is incorrect ?

Maria240895chile · Answer

because they said that the bait is successful in the northen stream, not in other locations. Is the same reason why we can eliminate E, we know that the argument is based only in trout, not other fishes.

VerbalBot · Answer

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Fishing columnist: When an independent research firm compared the five

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