News item: The result of a recent public survey has been called into

Question

News item: The result of a recent public survey has been called into question because one of the pollsters admitted to falsifying data. The survey originally concluded that most people in the country favor investing more money in information technologies. Because falsified data were included in the survey, its conclusion is not true; a majority does not favor more investment in information technologies.

The news item’s argument is vulnerable to criticism because it fails to consider the possibility that

(A) the conclusion of the survey would be verified if the falsified data were excluded

(B) the conclusion of the survey will be accepted by the public even though falsified data were used

(C) other pollsters in other surveys also may have falsified data

(D) some people who responded to the survey were lying

(E) people’s opinions about investing in information technologies can change as new technologies are developed

ATC93 · Answer

A) is the only answer that makes sense

The statement broken down says:
Questionable survey uses false data
Survey conclusion is that majority support…
False data = false conclusion

But this is not true if only good data is used and the conclusion is the same!

Posted from my mobile device

Rickooreo · Answer

Hi, can you please help me understand how to eliminate option E. The person stating that polls is falsified is not true becasue it is his change of opinion and hence since at first place itself the polls are not falsified but is mere change of opinion, hence, it matches the required of question stem i.e to "news item???s argument is vulnerable to criticism"

GMATNinja · Answer

One of the pollsters  admitted  to falsifying data. So, it's not reasonable to criticize the news item by saying that maybe the people just changed their opinion -- we  know  that the pollster intentionally altered the data, which is a problem even if people DO change their minds about technology.

We can't criticize the news item with the info in (E), because the pollsters admitted to falsifying data.

By contrast, here's (A):
 
We know that the survey data cannot be trusted. But the news item takes that fact and concludes that the  opposite  of the data must be true. The survey said that most people  favored  investment in tech, so the author concludes that most people are  against  investment in tech.

That's a pretty weak argument -- if the survey can't be trusted, then we can't use that same data to conclude  anything  whatsoever. We have no idea what the dishonest pollster actually changed, and what the real data might have indicated.

That's why (A) is the correct answer.

I hope that helps!

deepdinda95 · Answer

News item: The result of a recent public survey has been called into question because one of the pollsters admitted to falsifying data. The survey originally concluded that most people in the country favor investing more money in information technologies. Because falsified data were included in the survey, its conclusion is not true; a majority does not favor more investment in information technologies.

The news item???s argument is vulnerable to criticism because it fails to consider the possibility that

(A) the conclusion of the survey would be verified if the falsified data were excluded

(B) the conclusion of the survey will be accepted by the public even though falsified data were used

(C) other pollsters in other surveys also may have falsified data

(D) some people who responded to the survey were lying

(E) people???s opinions about investing in information technologies can change as new technologies are developed
Why is the answer A

GMATNinja · Answer

Check out  this  post and let us know if you have any further questions!

pdfff · Answer

how can I eliminate option b?
if the concl. will be accepted by the public won't it means that the author's conclusion is wrong ?

GMATNinja · Answer

Note that the author's conclusion doesn't actually relate to whether or not the survey will be  accepted . Rather, the author is concluding that the survey's conclusion is "not  true ."

How does (B) affect this conclusion?

Well, notice that acceptance by the public doesn't directly relate to whether the survey is true or not. It's possible that a false survey would be accepted by the public, or that a true survey would be rejected. In other words, the public's reaction doesn't necessarily tell us anything about the truth or falsehood of the survey.

For that reason, (B) doesn't provide a possibility that renders the argument vulnerable to criticism, which makes it incorrect.

I hope that helps!

SudhanshuC · Answer

Option A

Although the data is false, we do not know to what extent it is false (1% or 51% out of all 100 data points) and whether we can exclude falsified data from the survey to arrive at the correct data and hence arrive at the correct result. 
 Hence,   Option A   is the correct answer. 
..................................................................................................................

Option D is wrong as it is not about the actual opinion of people but what people casted as a vote in the survey, even if they think that vote is not as per them.

Option C - Completely unrelated.

Option B - Acceptance of false data (by public) is not the case. Here, the assumption is that the false data is surely leading to an incorrect conclusion.

Option E - Change of people’s opinion (due to tech changes) is out of scope and not surely telling that the conclusion is false.

VerbalBot · Answer

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News item: The result of a recent public survey has been called into

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