Q24 - Columnist: George Orwell's book 1984

[chike_eze]

Argument: George Orwell's book "1984" has influenced a great number of this newspaper's readers because after surveying One thousand readers of the news paper, "1984" came in second (to the bible) as the most influential in the lives of the readers.

Issue: To evaluate the conclusion we need more information about the percentage of the readers who picked "1984". This will give us a better idea whether the survey supports the conclusion or not.

Correct = (B) "# People who chose books other than 1984". Aha! The answer to this question best helps us evaluate how many people voted for "1984" out of the 1000 people in the survey.

For example: say 995 people voted for other books, then only 5 out of 1000 voted for 1984. This outcome would not support the columnist's conclusion.

Alternatively: say 476 voted for the bible, 474 for "1984" and 50 for all other books, then this would support the columnist's conclusion.

(A) "Books read by each person surveyed?" Irrelevant to the conclusion.
(C) "People who read.. newspaper?" We already know the people surveyed were readers of the news paper.
(D) "Other books by Orwell.. people chose?". Out of scope. We are concerned about book "1984".
(E) "Read the books they chose?". Not sure how to categorize this wrong answer. Either way, the answer to this question does not tell us how representative or not 1984's "2nd place" finish was, of the people surveyed.

[ManhattanPrepLSAT1]

nice work Chike!

[mlbrandow]

chike_eze,

To add to your response,

(C) is incorrect because, answered in one extreme (1000), it does nothing to help evaluate the argument. Answered in an other (7 billion) it weakens the argument. The correct answer to an evaluate the argument question must always both strengthen and weaken, but this one either does nothing or weakens. (C) does not imply that people surveyed don't read the newspaper; it questions the size of the population (unknown) versus the sample (1000).

(E) is incorrect because the stimulus explicitly says "most influence." It says nothing about a requirement to read the book.

[Elizabeth.Naff]

Hey mlbrandow,

Thanks for clarifying why C is wrong, because that was the answer choice I went with. To me, the columnist was guilty of a scope shift. He based a conclusion about potentially thousands upon thousands of readers off a survey that asks only a selection of readers. If only 2 readers chose 1984 as their first option out of a total of 50,000 readers, than we may evaluate that the columnist's conclusion is off the mark.

On another note, do evaluate questions ALWAYS have to both strengthen and weaken? And what exactly do you mean by that? How can an answer choice do both? That seems like an ambiguity that the LSAT writers go to great lengths to avoid.

I appreciate your feedback!

[nbayar1212]

Yes. The answer choice to evaluate questions should be able to both strengthen and weaken the conclusion of the argument.

This is because the answer choice being offered is meant to help us decide whether or not we are to believe the conclusion i.e. evaluate it.

In Q24, answer choice B provides us with a question which, depending on the answer, will potentially strengthen if the answer is one thing and weaken if the answer choice is another.

For example, if out of the 1000 surveyed 998 people picked books other than 1984, then the fact that 1984 came in second after the bible does not really indicate that the 1984 has "exercised much influence". However, if 501 people picked books other than 1984 (in which case they would have all picked the bible) then having 499 people indicate that they were most influenced by 1984 would in fact indicate that the book has "exercised much influence" in the way the conclusion claims.

Hope this helps.

[jeannekim90]

Hi.

I get why B is the correct answer but
I still don't understand why C is not the correct choice.

The previous post explains that the one extreme (ex. 1000 readers) does nothing to weaken/strengthen the stimulus.

However, if there are 1000 readers, wouldn't that strengthen the stimulus? The number of people surveyed (1000) is representative of the number of newspaper readers(1000).

Can someone please clarify this for me?

Thank you.

[nbayar1212]

C is wrong because we already know that at least 1000 people reads the newspaper since the 1000 people surveyed were readers of the newspapers already. Since 1000 people is already a pretty large sample size, we don't really need to know exactly how many people read the newspaper to evaluate whether or not the survey's results actually support the claim that 1984 has substantially influenced their reader base.

If however, the sample size was say 10 people, then answer choice C would be helpful since if the newspaper only has 10 readers then the sample is totally representative and captures their audience's diversity 100% and the claim would be strengthened. But, if the paper is read by 1,000,000 people, then a sample size of 10 would be too small and the stimulus' claim would be significantly weakened.

As to the second point i.e. "The previous post explains that the one extreme (ex. 1000 readers) does nothing to weaken/strengthen the stimulus." ----- I wasn't saying that one extreme doesn't weaken or strengthen the claim. Rather, I was saying that depending on the reading preferences of the 1000 people sampled, we would then be able to more fully evaluate the claim made in the stimulus.

You are right that if there are 1000 people who read the newspaper that the claim would be strengthened since the sample size is actually the entire population in question and so is 100% without a doubt representative. But the reason it doesn't matter in this case is that the sample size is already really big and we know there are at least 1000 readers so we don't need to know anything more than that and can move on to evaluating other parts of the argument.

Hope this helps.

[monygg85]

Could someone please explain what the difference is between answer choice B and D? I just dont understand the difference. One is about G.O's books and the other is about books in general!

Thank you!

Edit: Had an idea..

Are we just not concerned with other G.O books since the conclusion states THAT book (G.O's 1984) had a lot of influence? So even if they read and liked his other ones they chose 1984?

[foralexpark]

Could someone please explain what the difference is between answer choice B and D? I just dont understand the difference. One is about G.O's books and the other is about books in general!

Thank you!

Edit: Had an idea..

Are we just not concerned with other G.O books since the conclusion states THAT book (G.O's 1984) had a lot of influence? So even if they read and liked his other ones they chose 1984?

Exactly right.

How many books by G.O. is not important in determining whether this columnist's argument is strong or not.

so what if all those readers read other books by G.O. (ie Animal Farm, etc), we are concerned with how much influence 1984 had on the newspaper readers

[mornincounselor]

Very interesting question. I actually went from A initially to C on my second run through the question.

FIrst, I focused on countering the "much influence" part of the conclusion, I thought had the readers read very few books then the most influential book they've read still might not have had "much influence" on them.

Then, I attacked the "great number of this newspapers readers" portion of the conclusion, maybe these 1000 readers found this book influential but the newspaper has 1,000,000 regular readers and this sample is unrepresentative of the reader base as a whole.

The possibility that 900 people chose the bible, 5 people chose 1984 and every other book was selected less often didn't really occur to me at all, but alas, that question certainly would be helpful in evaluating the argument.

[williamkazenas]

I really can't accept B, but I guess I will have to and my actual question can be found under the (TL;DR) ********* below****


When I first read the stimulus, I immediately didn't like the sample size of 1000 readers. Is that 1000/1200 of all the readers of this magazine?

Is is 1000/113432337372372328323723828 readers?

I basically have to assume this representative sample was done correctly and accurately reflects the opinions of the majority of the rest of the readers...the total number of which is completely unknown to me.

"George Orwells book 1984 has exercised much influence on a """Great Number""" of this newspapers readers."

- great number is vague. Tell me Columnist, what is a great number? As someone interested in evaluating your argument I want to know how many people didn't choose 1984 (B) AND I want to know how representative your sample size is so I can see if your findings make any sense.

- if 3 million people read this newspaper, and you only asked 1000 people what they thought, then I have 0% faith in the strength of this study...unless I assume your sample is very representative.

Anyway.... What if 999 people chose the bible and one guy chose 1984?

Sure, this is the logic for B and I agree that looked VERY appealing to me when I took this test.

But at the end of the day I still don't know how many total readers there are. If there are 1001 total readers and 1 person chose 1984 then who cares "how many people chose books other than 1984?"; a great number of readers did not choose 1984. This indicates that answer choice C is just as important to know and can be just as devastating to the columnists argument.

(TL;DR)
********Now here is my actual question (the rest was just me bitching): ******

When the LSAT presents a case study like this and references a sample survey, are we to assume the sample is always representative of the whole?

That would have eliminated C pretty quickly but I just figured that was a strong assumption. The argument kind of depends on this assumption to exist.

[oy-sy]

Same here, still bothered by C.

For choosing C we must assume the sample size of 1000 people is "a great number of" readers, which we never know.

Could anyone help explain?

[ohthatpatrick]

With surveys used as evidence, we don't assume that they are well conducted. We want to consider such issues as,

- sample size
- representative sample
- leading questions
- honest answers

That said, the correct answer isn't usually about one of these issues unless they've given us a little hint/nudge that something may be awry.

If (C) had asked "Is the sample representative", it would be a fine answer.

Knowing the number of readers doesn't tell us anything about whether a sample is representative. 1000 respondents is plenty robust, as sample sizes go.

It doesn't matter whether that 1000 is representing 50,000 readers or 1 million readers. You don't increase your sample size just because you have a bigger population.

So the potential answers to (C) would never move us any closer to knowing whether or not the survey was representative.

[YudeS218]

I wonder why E is not the right answer.

E asks that how many of those surveyed had actually read the books they chose, and I think is helpful in evaluating the columnist's argument.

After all, if no one has actually read 1984, the argument will certainly be undermined.

[MJ]

I wonder why E is not the right answer.

E asks that how many of those surveyed had actually read the books they chose, and I think is helpful in evaluating the columnist's argument.

After all, if no one has actually read 1984, the argument will certainly be undermined.

Guess you don't have to read it to have an effect on your life. E.g., John Lennon's death changed my life so I believe "The Catcher in the Rye" has influence on my life regardless if I have read it.

[cgentry]

Question Type:
ID the Flaw
Stimulus Breakdown:
For this question, we need to find the assumption, or gap in logic, that exists between the conclusion and the premises.

Conclusion: 1984 had influenced a great number of this newspaper’s readers.

Some initial questions, we, as LSAT test takers, should ask:
What is meant by influence?
What is a “great number”? Hundreds? Thousands? The majority?

Premise: A survey of 1000 readers. The book chosen most often was the Bible; 1984 was second.

More questions we should ask:
What does “most often” mean? If 990 out of a 1000, then 1984 influenced at most 10 people in this survey. It’s doubtful that one could claim that 10 out of a 1000 can be claimed to be “a great number”. If 300 out of a 1000, then 1984 influenced at most 299 readers. 299 out of a 1000 could reasonably be claimed as “a great number”.

But the above examples have one more glaring issue: assuming the Bible and 1984 were the only selections. What if there were 41 different books mentioned? Then it’s conceivable that the Bible gets, oh let’s say 200 votes. That leaves 800 votes that could be distributed among the remaining 40 books. That’s an average of 20 votes per book, and 1984 could receive anywhere from 199 votes (remember, it has to be 2nd in votes to the Bible), or 59 votes (if all 39 other books received 90 votes combined).
Answer Anticipation:
There are very large discrepancies in the numerical options provided by the evidence, and the answer choice should bring up this issue.
Correct answer:
B
Answer choice analysis:
(A) “Number of books each person had read” does not equate to “number of different books receiving votes.”
(B) This brings up the relevant question: what if the 1000 votes were spread among dozens of books? Keep this choice.
(C) Similar to A, this does not equate to number of different books receiving votes.
(D) This would be interesting if the conclusion had been “George Orwell’s works influenced many people”, but the conclusion was specific to 1984.
(E) Personally, I find this choice amusing because it reads as though the test writers are getting a little ‘snarky’: do people in these surveys actually read the books, or do they just respond with something they think sounds good? But this choice ultimately does not relate to the number of books receiving votes, or the number of received per book.

Takeaway/Pattern:
Be suspect of claims about numbers, especially claims that appear to involve implied statements of majorities. In this instance, saying the Bible received the most votes may, at first glance, appear to imply that the Bible received the majority of votes--but that does not have to hold true. The Bible could have received a plurality of votes, instead.
#officialexplanation