Q26 - A recent poll showed that

[rachue]

Hi,

I really need help understanding why A is correct here. I hesitated between C and E and ultimately chose C. Thanks in advance.

[ohthatpatrick]

It's a pretty confusing one initially, I grant you. Ultimately, I started to understand it better once I saw that "almost half" and 52% were complementary and possibly distinct. We could be saying that 48% of people don't like the mayor and believe he had an ethics violation, whereas 52% of people like the mayor and don't believe he had an ethics violation. This story fits our facts and resolves the apparent confusion.

Let's review the facts:

almost half believe the mayor had an ethics violation (slightly less than 50%)

and yet,

slightly more than half believe the mayor is excellent (52%)
and the mayor's "excellence rating" seems to have been unaffected by the ethics scandal (the scandal did not lower his "excellence rating")

(A) suggests that the people who think he violated ethics (let's say that's 48% of the people surveyed -- which is almost half) have been ranking him as 'poor' all along.

This explains why the scandal didn't lower his approval rating. The people who believed the ethics scandal were already rating him as 'poor'. The people who DON'T believe the scandal are the ones who have been ranking him as 'excellent' all along, and since they don't believe the scandal they have no reason to lower their approval rating.

(B) discussing the mayor's opponents will not help us clarify why the mayor's approval rating has not been hurt by the scandal

(C) 20% didn't even know he was accused, but we want to know why the nearly 50% who DO know and DO think he violated ethics have not lowered his approval rating.

(D) this doesn't address his approval rating, and it seems to reinforce the paradox of "shouldn't this ethics scandal be affecting his approval ratings?"

(E) is pretty tempting. He explained that he didn't violate ethics, it was just his staffers making honest mistakes. So doesn't that explain why his approval rating stayed the same, despite nearly half of all voters thinking he violated ethics?

No, because we have to reconcile the two halves of the paradox. This answer tries to ignore one half in order to explain the other half. In order for this answer to explain why his approval rating didn't go down, we'd have to be thinking that people believed the mayor's explanation. But half the paradox is that nearly half the voters think he's guilty of ethics violations. So THESE people clearly didn't believe his explanation, and hence we haven't clarified why their disapproval has not had an effect on his approval rating.

Let me know if this satisfies you or if you'd like more clarification.

[shodges]

It's a pretty confusing one initially, I grant you. Ultimately, I started to understand it better once I saw that "almost half" and 52% were complementary and possibly distinct. We could be saying that 48% of people don't like the mayor and believe he had an ethics violation, whereas 52% of people like the mayor and don't believe he had an ethics violation. This story fits our facts and resolves the apparent confusion.

Let's review the facts:

almost half believe the mayor had an ethics violation (slightly less than 50%)

and yet,

slightly more than half believe the mayor is excellent (52%)
and the mayor's "excellence rating" seems to have been unaffected by the ethics scandal (the scandal did not lower his "excellence rating")

(A) suggests that the people who think he violated ethics (let's say that's 48% of the people surveyed -- which is almost half) have been ranking him as 'poor' all along.

This explains why the scandal didn't lower his approval rating. The people who believed the ethics scandal were already rating him as 'poor'. The people who DON'T believe the scandal are the ones who have been ranking him as 'excellent' all along, and since they don't believe the scandal they have no reason to lower their approval rating.

(B) discussing the mayor's opponents will not help us clarify why the mayor's approval rating has not been hurt by the scandal

(C) 20% didn't even know he was accused, but we want to know why the nearly 50% who DO know and DO think he violated ethics have not lowered his approval rating.

(D) this doesn't address his approval rating, and it seems to reinforce the paradox of "shouldn't this ethics scandal be affecting his approval ratings?"

(E) is pretty tempting. He explained that he didn't violate ethics, it was just his staffers making honest mistakes. So doesn't that explain why his approval rating stayed the same, despite nearly half of all voters thinking he violated ethics?

No, because we have to reconcile the two halves of the paradox. This answer tries to ignore one half in order to explain the other half. In order for this answer to explain why his approval rating didn't go down, we'd have to be thinking that people believed the mayor's explanation. But half the paradox is that nearly half the voters think he's guilty of ethics violations. So THESE people clearly didn't believe his explanation, and hence we haven't clarified why their disapproval has not had an effect on his approval rating.

Let me know if this satisfies you or if you'd like more clarification.

If (E) said "Walker has successfully defended himself..." would (E) be correct?

[ilia.medovikov]

It's a pretty confusing one initially, I grant you. Ultimately, I started to understand it better once I saw that "almost half" and 52% were complementary and possibly distinct. We could be saying that 48% of people don't like the mayor and believe he had an ethics violation, whereas 52% of people like the mayor and don't believe he had an ethics violation. This story fits our facts and resolves the apparent confusion.

Let's review the facts:

almost half believe the mayor had an ethics violation (slightly less than 50%)

and yet,

slightly more than half believe the mayor is excellent (52%)
and the mayor's "excellence rating" seems to have been unaffected by the ethics scandal (the scandal did not lower his "excellence rating")

(A) suggests that the people who think he violated ethics (let's say that's 48% of the people surveyed -- which is almost half) have been ranking him as 'poor' all along.

This explains why the scandal didn't lower his approval rating. The people who believed the ethics scandal were already rating him as 'poor'. The people who DON'T believe the scandal are the ones who have been ranking him as 'excellent' all along, and since they don't believe the scandal they have no reason to lower their approval rating.

(B) discussing the mayor's opponents will not help us clarify why the mayor's approval rating has not been hurt by the scandal

(C) 20% didn't even know he was accused, but we want to know why the nearly 50% who DO know and DO think he violated ethics have not lowered his approval rating.

(D) this doesn't address his approval rating, and it seems to reinforce the paradox of "shouldn't this ethics scandal be affecting his approval ratings?"

(E) is pretty tempting. He explained that he didn't violate ethics, it was just his staffers making honest mistakes. So doesn't that explain why his approval rating stayed the same, despite nearly half of all voters thinking he violated ethics?

No, because we have to reconcile the two halves of the paradox. This answer tries to ignore one half in order to explain the other half. In order for this answer to explain why his approval rating didn't go down, we'd have to be thinking that people believed the mayor's explanation. But half the paradox is that nearly half the voters think he's guilty of ethics violations. So THESE people clearly didn't believe his explanation, and hence we haven't clarified why their disapproval has not had an effect on his approval rating.

Let me know if this satisfies you or if you'd like more clarification.

If (E) said "Walker has successfully defended himself..." would (E) be correct?

Helloshodges,

This still won't have made (e) the correct answer. Rather, knowing that Walker has successfully defended himself would further reinforce the paradox by raising the following question: how come, despite Walker successfully defending himself, almost half of people surveyed still believe that he is still guilty of ethic violations?

I hope this helps

[ptewarie]

It's not as confusing as this might seem to be.
The stimulus notes that almost half the people think he is guilty, but 52% still thinks he is doing a good job.

Well, A basically states that EVERYONE who thinks he is guilty never thought he was doing a good job.

guilty-> never a good job

Contrapositive:

if good job-> do not think he is guilty

This solves the paradox because those people who think he is doing a good job(52%) dont even think he is guilty. While those people who do think he is doing a poor job think he is guilty.

[mydota]

It's not as confusing as this might seem to be.
The stimulus notes that almost half the people think he is guilty, but 52% still thinks he is doing a good job.

Well, A basically states that EVERYONE who thinks he is guilty never thought he was doing a good job.

guilty-> never a good job

Contrapositive:

if good job-> do not think he is guilty

This solves the paradox because those people who think he is doing a good job(52%) dont even think he is guilty. While those people who do think he is doing a poor job think he is guilty.

These conditions don't work because the A) states: guilty-->poor job. Poor job is not the same as never a good job. Also, the negative of never a good job is not good job. It could be at least once a good job, which isn't the same as good or excellence.

[contropositive]

It's a pretty confusing one initially, I grant you. Ultimately, I started to understand it better once I saw that "almost half" and 52% were complementary and possibly distinct. We could be saying that 48% of people don't like the mayor and believe he had an ethics violation, whereas 52% of people like the mayor and don't believe he had an ethics violation. This story fits our facts and resolves the apparent confusion.

Let's review the facts:

almost half believe the mayor had an ethics violation (slightly less than 50%)

and yet,

slightly more than half believe the mayor is excellent (52%)
and the mayor's "excellence rating" seems to have been unaffected by the ethics scandal (the scandal did not lower his "excellence rating")

(A) suggests that the people who think he violated ethics (let's say that's 48% of the people surveyed -- which is almost half) have been ranking him as 'poor' all along.

This explains why the scandal didn't lower his approval rating. The people who believed the ethics scandal were already rating him as 'poor'. The people who DON'T believe the scandal are the ones who have been ranking him as 'excellent' all along, and since they don't believe the scandal they have no reason to lower their approval rating.

(B) discussing the mayor's opponents will not help us clarify why the mayor's approval rating has not been hurt by the scandal

(C) 20% didn't even know he was accused, but we want to know why the nearly 50% who DO know and DO think he violated ethics have not lowered his approval rating.

(D) this doesn't address his approval rating, and it seems to reinforce the paradox of "shouldn't this ethics scandal be affecting his approval ratings?"

(E) is pretty tempting. He explained that he didn't violate ethics, it was just his staffers making honest mistakes. So doesn't that explain why his approval rating stayed the same, despite nearly half of all voters thinking he violated ethics?

No, because we have to reconcile the two halves of the paradox. This answer tries to ignore one half in order to explain the other half. In order for this answer to explain why his approval rating didn't go down, we'd have to be thinking that people believed the mayor's explanation. But half the paradox is that nearly half the voters think he's guilty of ethics violations. So THESE people clearly didn't believe his explanation, and hence we haven't clarified why their disapproval has not had an effect on his approval rating.

Let me know if this satisfies you or if you'd like more clarification.

Nice explanation! I keep having a hard time with these question types regardless of how much I drill. However, I am starting to see some patterns. I noticed they sometimes have wrong answer choices that only explains one half of the story but not the actual result, E would be a good example of this. I saw another one of this on preptest 58-Section 4-Question 20. B was wrong because it covered only half the story.

[m2thebizzle]

When I read this I thought of Bill Clinton. A lot of people thought he was guilty of ethics. However, a lot of people approved of the things he did for the country (e.g. reducing the federal deficit). But no where in the passage is ethics related to performance as a mayor. Is this something I just need to assume? Where am I going wrong?

[hnadgauda]

The question stimulus confuses me. 52% of those surveyed think the Mayor's performance is good/excellent and this number is the same or higher than it was before anyone accused him of ethics violations. Because of this, I thought, E or C were the right answers. I don't know how to wrap my brain around how answer choice A is correct. Can you please clarify?

[obobob]

The question stimulus confuses me. 52% of those surveyed think the Mayor's performance is good/excellent and this number is the same or higher than it was before anyone accused him of ethics violations. Because of this, I thought, E or C were the right answers. I don't know how to wrap my brain around how answer choice A is correct. Can you please clarify?

Hi @hnadgauda, I am there with you. The stimulus tells very partially about this entire surveyed group of people and about these two different groups that the stimulus talks about. So, I have an additional question to @Ohthatpatrick's explanation. So, for your part of your explanation as I am quoting in the following:

[...] I saw that "almost half" and 52% were complementary and possibly distinct. We could be saying that 48% of people don't like the mayor and believe he had an ethics violation, whereas 52% of people like the mayor and don't believe he had an ethics violation.

Can't the 52% of those surveyed, who believed that the mayor's performance to be good and excellent, include partial or entire group of the 48%, who believed that the mayor is guilty?
(For example, the 48% of the surveyed group is equally divided to the two groups-- 24% on the side believing that the mayor's performance is good and excellent and the rest of the 24% on the another believing that the mayor's performance was worse than "good and excellent"?)

So I am thinking that there could be people who believed that 1) the mayor is both guilty and 2) his performance is good or excellent. On the other hand there are other people who believed that 1) the mayor is guilty and 2) his performance is NOT good or excellent.

(Theoretically speaking, there could be infinitely more number of other different groups such as:
* 1) the mayor is guilty and 2) his performance is just the same as before (whatever if its good or bad or in between the spectrum of the two)
* 1) the mayor is NOT guilty and 2) his performance is good or excellent
* 1) the mayor is NOT guilty and 2) his performance is NOT good or excellent.
* 1) the mayor is NOT guilty and 2) his performance is the same as before .... etc.)

In another words, we only know that the 52% of the entire population surveyed judged that the mayor's performance to be good or excellent (not lower than before his accusation), and separately, we know that "almost half of the city's residents [(surveyed)]" believed that the mayor is guilty-- so do not necessarily need to assume that none of those two groups overlaps. I am just bringing this up as I was thinking that there seems to be a possibility of the two groups not being "distinct" groups as opposed to the possibility that you stated in your explanation.

To sum up, I am not going against anything about what you said @Ohthatpatrick in your explanation, but I just want to confirm with you if what's I am thinking is also compatible in understanding the the stimulus correctly. I think your explanation helps to better understand the point of the question and the stimulus, and I just want to check my side of understanding with you or anyone who can answer to my question.

Thank you in advance!

[obobob]

The question stimulus confuses me. 52% of those surveyed think the Mayor's performance is good/excellent and this number is the same or higher than it was before anyone accused him of ethics violations. Because of this, I thought, E or C were the right answers. I don't know how to wrap my brain around how answer choice A is correct. Can you please clarify?

Hi @hnadgauda, I am there with you. The stimulus tells very partially about this entire surveyed group of people and about these two different groups that the stimulus talks about. So, I have an additional question to @Ohthatpatrick's explanation. So, for your part of your explanation as I am quoting in the following:

[...] I saw that "almost half" and 52% were complementary and possibly distinct. We could be saying that 48% of people don't like the mayor and believe he had an ethics violation, whereas 52% of people like the mayor and don't believe he had an ethics violation.

Can't the 52% of those surveyed, who believed that the mayor's performance to be good and excellent, include partial or entire group of the 48%, who believed that the mayor is guilty?
(For example, the 48% of the surveyed group is equally divided to the two groups-- 24% on the side believing that the mayor's performance is good and excellent and the rest of the 24% on the another believing that the mayor's performance was worse than "good and excellent"?)

So I am thinking that there could be people who believed that 1) the mayor is both guilty and 2) his performance is good or excellent. On the other hand there are other people who believed that 1) the mayor is guilty and 2) his performance is NOT good or excellent.

(Theoretically speaking, there could be infinitely more number of other different groups such as:
* 1) the mayor is guilty and 2) his performance is just the same as before (whatever if its good or bad or in between the spectrum of the two)
* 1) the mayor is NOT guilty and 2) his performance is good or excellent
* 1) the mayor is NOT guilty and 2) his performance is NOT good or excellent.
* 1) the mayor is NOT guilty and 2) his performance is the same as before .... etc.)

In another words, we only know that the 52% of the entire population surveyed judged that the mayor's performance to be good or excellent (not lower than before his accusation), and separately, we know that "almost half of the city's residents [(surveyed)]" believed that the mayor is guilty-- so do not necessarily need to assume that none of those two groups overlaps. I am just bringing this up as I was thinking that there seems to be a possibility of the two groups not being "distinct" groups as opposed to the possibility that you stated in your explanation.

To sum up, I am not going against anything about what you said, @Ohthatpatrick, in your explanation earlier, but I just want to confirm with you if what I am thinking is also compatible in understanding the the stimulus correctly. I think your explanation helps to better understand the point of the question and the stimulus, and I just want to check my side of understanding with you or anyone who can answer to my question. In fact, I think your explanation best connects a possible way of understanding the stimulus with the correct answer (A) and explains why (A) is a good and the best answer choice among the rest.

Thank you in advance!

[ohthatpatrick]

Sure, you're totally correct about what's possible.

I think your big confusion / takeaway is that you're holding the correct answer to a higher standard than you want to. It doesn't need to be a bulletproof explanation. It can just be a POSSIBLE explanation. If no other answer is offering a more compelling possibility, then a POSSIBLE explanation helps to explain the surprise more than does any other answer.

When we're looking at Strengthen, Weaken, and Explain/Resolve questions, they all have the question stem:
Which of the following, if true, most ____ 's ...

The correct answers here are usually pretty unsatisfying because they don't END the discussion. It's not like Strengthen answers prove, Weaken answers refute, or Explain answers solve the mystery.

Correct answers to strengthen make the argument at least somewhat more convincing.
Correct answers to weaken make the argument as least somewhat less convincing.
Correct answers to Explain/Resolve give you at least one possible way of resolving the paradox.

In order to stop your brain from never liking any answer on this question type, you'll sometimes need to say to yourself ... "Well, this answer at least gives me a potential way to explain the confusion, more so than any other answer."

If you have access to test 67, this problem about camels is a nice, easier-to-understand example of a correct answer that gives us a potential way to explain the surprise, even though for the explanation to make sense we would have to assume some things that weren't said (put another way ... the explanation we start picturing from the correct answer is definitely not GUARANTEED by the correct answer, it's just hinted at).

https://www.manhattanprep.com/lsat/foru ... t8155.html