Q21 - Curator: A magazine recently

[Ellesat]

I would appreciate some help on this one. I had it down to D and E and even considered C. Wasn't quite clear on what the curator was trying to establish by pointing out that they were three "close" friends. Please help me understand why we can definitively rule out the wrong ones. Thanks.

[uhdang]

A sneaky question, in my opinion. It looks like the test maker presents a seemingly-correct lead in the stimulus, so that he/she can lure us to choosing the answer choice with the mention of that specific lead.

This is a principle question.

Answer choices to this type of question are often written in very general terms, so we can directly apply given reference to each term. But, it's a good exercise to pre-phrase before getting into the answer choices.

So, the magazine was trying to represent "most" local residents' sentiments towards the art exhibit through three residents. While it wouldn't be a problem if each of sentiments are properly representing those of residents, Curator points out that they are close friends, which leaves some doubts on magazine story's reliability. Thus, curator's argument would be justified if there is such a principle as, "Representing a group of people through small number of people is inappropriate if they don't properly represent the group."

Having thought this far, let's go to the answer choices.

A) We are not given any information about "special expertise." Aside from being close friends from each other and being residents, we don't know anything about those three residents. Who knows if they are in fact art experts? Besides, we aren't told that magazine presented their opinions as though they were experts. Are we to assume that people are art experts just because they were quoted? Nope.

B) "when the population is likely to be evenly divided on that issue." is the problematic line. Where do we learn that residents are evenly divided on this issue? Nowhere.

C) What Curator points out is the relationship between those quoted residents and how appropriate it is for them to be representing other residents, not the number of people magazine has quoted. It's focusing on the wrong aspect of the problem.

D) Now, this is tempting, considering "close friends" is directly used in the answer choice. What was problematic in D) is "thereby imply that they must agree with each other." Agreeing with each other doesn't lead them to "oppose" the exhibit. If that is the problem Curator is pointing out, it can easily be refuted that they are equally prone to agreeing together to "like" the exhibit. "Agreeing together" and "inappropriately representing the group" are not claiming for the same argument.

E) Bingo. This is very close to what we've pre-phrased above -- "Representing a group of people through small number of people is inappropriate if they don't properly represent the group." "Being close friends" is certainly an element that could imply bias in their opinions (although D) pointed out a wrong aspect of problematic quality of being close friends). Being close friends could mean that they share similar aesthetic tastes, for example, and the taste might not be corresponding to those of most other local residents. There is no doubt they can be considered "opinions of potentially non-representative sample"

[ohthatpatrick]

Excellent explanation! Please let us know if anything continues to bother you about this question.

[Ellesat]

Thanks so much. I understand him saying that the quotes "were intended to suggest that most local residents oppose the exhibit" translates to the principle that you're using a potentially unrepresentative sample. Was the part that they are close friends put in to throw you off and just add doubt to the magazine's credibility? If all he said was that the story failed to mention they're all close friends, but didn't have the line about the "most...exhibit"...then what would the principle be? the principle is always an inflated version of the assumption right? I just don't understand what assumption he is making when he adds in the line about them being close friends to the part about the unrepresentative sample. In order to make D right, would he have had to explicitly mention something about the fact that they must agree with each other?

[ohthatpatrick]

Correct, a Principle will basically be a bridge idea between what was discussed in the Premise and what was discussed in the Conclusion.

We need a bridge idea to get us
from PREM (the three quotes came from close friends)
to CONC (misleading story - suggests that most local residents oppose the exhibit)

Notice that all five answer choices get the misleading part correct, but we have to dig slightly deeper. HOW was the story misleading?

It was intended to suggest that most local residents oppose the exhibit, when all we cited was three close friends.

A correct answer COULD have simply been "It is misleading to present the opinions of a very small sample as though they represent most people".

The fact that the small sample consisted of three close friends means that, in addition to the sample size being small, it is also probably not very diverse. In general, close friends tend to share a lot of demographic characteristics.

The problem with (D) is that it locks in with the premise but not the conclusion. Our author has no problem with suggesting that these three close friends agree with each other. In fact, the author is thinking, "Of COURSE they agree with each other! They're close friends."

Remember, we've gotta get from "if you just asked three close friends", then you shouldn't "make a claim about most local residents".

(D) is saying "if you just asked three close friends", then you shouldn't assume "they agree with other".

(E) is saying "if you just asked three close friends (i.e. a POTENTIALLY nonrepresentative sample)", then you shouldn't assume "they represent public opinion".

Hope this helps.