Q24 - In university towns, police issue

[noah]

The key to this match the flaw question is to identify the flaw and structure before looking at the answer choices.

The conclusion is that most parking tickets go to students. Why? Because more parking tickets are given out when students are in town than when they're not.

So, how would you debate that? How could it be that most tickets are given to non-students even though more tickets are given out during the school year? Who could be getting those tickets? Perhaps those tickets are being given to professors, or visitors to the football game, or to non-students that don't have permits but can find public spots during the summer, but not during the school year.

So, the flaw is that the argument assumes that the increase is related to the group that's is responsible for the surge in population. (E) has the same issue. Sure there are more snacks handed out when other kids come, but do those snacks have to go to the kids? Maybe it's the parents that are gobbling them up, or maybe it's the kids of the hosts themselves, hoarding all the snacks under the table!

To confirm, the structure we want is this: during a certain time there is more S and T, so more T goes to S. (E) has during visits there's more C and more S, so more S goes to C.

(A) has a premise mismatch since it mentions "the proportion." We should only learn about a time period in which more of one group is around. If the proportion of children to adult increases in a certain time period, it doesn't mean there are definitely more kids - it could, for example, mean that there are fewer adults.

(B) is missing a time period when there's more of a group.

(C) has a few mismatches. It's about a characteristic; and, it's missing a time period when more of a group is around and more of a phenomenon occurs.

(D) has a time period when more of something occurs, but we're missing more of a population being around. And while there being more fruit is a tenuous match, we don't learn that there's some other increase in the summer. In the original, the summer saw an increase in both S and T - here we have only F increasing.

I hope that clears it up - tell me if not.

#officialexplanation

[jennifer]

I got this question correct but I dont know how. Can someone please explain to me why E is correct and A is incorrect? Thanks

[shirando21]

D is very tempting. I saw D as more fruits, more buy.

But maybe more varieties does not necessarily mean more in volume or number. and buy is different than be issued to or given to.

[noah]

maybe more varieties does not necessarily mean more in volume or number. and buy is different than be issued to or given to.

These both look like terms shifts indeed!

[joseph.m.kirby]

Stimulus:
Students in town (Y) (time period) --> more tickets given (X)
Therefore, most tickets (X) go to students (Y)

Basically, When Y is greater, X is also greater. Thus, Most X are associated with Y. The flaw is that the argument fails to consider that more tickets (X) could be given to residents, professors, or staff and not necessarily, students.

Perhaps during the school year, when most of the students are in town, the laws are more strictly enforced (so more tickets are given to whoever). Moreover, perhaps the residents get angry that the students are walking/jaywalking all over the place (it's a university town, after all), so there's more road rage during the semester (and thus, more tickets).

(A) Incorrect

Popcorn sales increase (P) as the proportion of children moviegoers (C) increase relative to adults (A). Therefore, (C) buy most of the snacks (S).

(B) Incorrect

Houseplant (Y) is greener (G) than houseplant (Z). Therefore, houseplant (Y) gets more sunlight (S) than houseplant (Z).

(C) Incorrect

Most people who go to a university (UP) study (S). Therefore, most people who go to a university (UP) are studious (Z).

(D) Incorrect

Variety of Fruit (V) # in Summer > Winter. Therefore, consumers (C) buy fruit # Summer > Winter.

(E) Correct

Children in house (Y) (time period) --> more snacks given (X)
Therefore, most snacks (X) go to children (Y)

When Y is greater, X is also greater. Thus, Most X are associated with Y.

[rostov]

My problem with E is that assuming that all snacks go to the visiting children when they visit doesn't fix the argument like it would fix the stimulus' argument. I think it derives from the fact that we're not given a time frame.

Example: Children visit twice a year. They give 2 snacks instead of the usual one-daily

All the snacks go to the visiting children when they visit.

Still, most of the snacks don't go to the visiting children.

Are we not supposed to read this much into it? Did I make a mistake? I picked E because it was the best, but it took me longer than it should have because of this.

[noah]

My problem with E is that assuming that all snacks go to the visiting children when they visit doesn't fix the argument like it would fix the stimulus' argument. I think it derives from the fact that we're not given a time frame.

Example: Children visit twice a year. They give 2 snacks instead of the usual one-daily

All the snacks go to the visiting children when they visit.

Still, most of the snacks don't go to the visiting children.

Are we not supposed to read this much into it? Did I make a mistake? I picked E because it was the best, but it took me longer than it should have because of this.

I'm not sure that thinking about it as "what would fix this argument?" is working for you in terms of efficiency.

I see what you mean about (E) being different (and I actually see the difference more in terms of how the distribution is compared--total given out vs. rate given out), but work the problem wrong-to-right, star it if you're feeling unsure and come back later if you have time.

[pattymcfatty]

I eliminated A) because it conflates popcorn with snacks, whereas the original argument is consistent with 'parking citations'. In other words, for A) to match the stimulus, it would have to be something like ‘more tickets for being parked too far from curb tickets occur when students are around, therefore they get the most parking citations'. It seems like a shift from a subclass of a thing to the class as a whole.

Explained a different way: the flaw in the stimulus is that because something increases when a group is present, the group must get more of that thing/is the cause. But A) says some subclass of a thing increases when a group is present therefore that entire class of thing increases when the group is present'. I agree with the fundamental flaw that was pointed out (proportion vs. total amount), but I'm wondering if the above is a legitimate reason to eliminate A?

[erikwoodward10]

I eliminated A for the same reason as the above poster... A talks about snacks/popcorn, which we can't assume to be mutually exclusive. Is this a valid reason for eliminating A?

[maryadkins]

I don't think you mean "mutually exclusive" here (that would mean that they NEVER overlap, and I think you're saying that we can't assume they ARE perfectly overlapped).

The snacks-popcorn discrepancy is valid for being suspicious of (A), yes.

[andrewgong01]

Would "A" haev been correct assuming it did not junmp from popcorns to snack and, more importantly, it never said the word "proportion". In other words, had "A" just said As the # of kids increase per movie popcorn sales increase (e.g. it's a kids movie). Therefore we know that most of the snack is bought by kids.

I think this mirrors the original one because in the original it also gives a correlation of some sort (more students ---lets assume thats what they mean by school year-- correlates with more tickets). Therefore most of the tickets is due to/caused by students) . Like the "new" "A", we have a correlation of more kids leads to more popcorn and then attributing the latter's increase is due to the former.

"E" mirrors this in that it says When you have more kids over at your house more snack is given out/consumed. Therefore, most of these snacks is due to the kids who came over (i.e. most of the snacks went to the kids that came over).

B,C, D can be eliminated because it never really had the premise of giving this correlation then arguing the latter of the correlation is due to the former's increase.

B says ' Greener than houseplan' -- where's the correlation?
C is a population issue but more importantly it has no correlation. It just says one group studies
D is missing that correlation. What is greater diversity of fruits correlated with?

It was from this that I think my re-written version of "A" would be correct

[ohthatpatrick]

Here's a correct version of (A):

At cinemas, far more popcorn is sold when children attend a movie compared to what's sold when no children attend a movie. Therefore, we know that most popcorn is sold to children.

[krisk743]

Hey so can I arrive at a/c E by understanding the following...

It's the only a/c that, like the premise, contains most and more.

Question says: MORE parking citations were given...so MOST were to students

E). MORE parents give out snacks....MOST snacks bought given to children

I also looked at other answers but this method allows me to jump to a/c's and check those first. If everything is good with them I just circle and move on.

[CharlesS800]

I got this question wrong while taking a practice test, and right during review, even though I still found it tough then.

I diagrammed the argument as:

Police issue more tickets during school year than they do when students are out of town --> Most parking citations in university town are issued to students.

Off the bat, I got rid of answer C because it seemed like circular reasoning not present in the original argument. I then discarded B because of its comparison of the two houseplants, something not present in the original argument.

Noah's explanation made the reason answer D is incorrect easy to understand. I think I originally eliminated it for a similar reason, but couldn't quite verbalize it, I just got rid of it because it seemed to be missing something, which I now see was correct, in that it was missing the increase in people present in the OG argument.

A and E were hard for me to differentiate, but I see what I did wrong and what I could have done to make looking at both easier. I identified the argument and then immediately jumped down to the answer choices. I think what I should have done, and will do in the future for these types of questions, is to consider the other factors that Noah identified as well, limiting things like the time period IDed in the argument and the increase in people. I think if I had seen both of these factors, it would have been a much easier call to get rid of A because it neglects the time period specificity of the OG argument, to say nothing of its inclusion of proportionality that is not present in the original argument as well.