Q9 - As part of a survey,

[sissixz]

I should admit I still cannot find this argument's flaw even when I reviewed all my wrong answers.

I chose D, and still cannot get A.

Help me! Thanks a ton!

[jiyoonsim]

Wrong answers first.

B) Doesn't matter - think of news article stats. They often mention approximate number of survey population instead of exact number, but that doesn't mean the article is a complete bogus.

C) The determinant of personal finance has nothing to do with the given stem. C) just used the words in stem to make it sound like relevant, but if you read it carefully, it's completely different.

D) This isn't the case - you can distinguish premise and argument on this stem. If you can't distinguish premise and argument, or the argument still sounds alright even after swapping the argument and premise places, then this flaw applices.

E) Not really, because the author already mentioned "in general" thus avoiding equating the group and individual(s).

Now A):
Let's start off with the example.

In 2000, sophomores at MIT were asked to release their personal financial information. 20% refused. In 2010, then-sophomores at MIT were asked to release their personal financial information. 40% refused.

If this was the case, the stem's conclusion is valid, because this was done on exactly same sample population and their change was trackable. But here's what our stem does:


In 2000, residents of New York City who are 25 were asked to release their financial information. 20% refused. At the same time, residents of New York City who are 70 were asked to release their financial information. 40% refused.

Unlike the first case, they are not done on the exactly same sample population. It's possible that the refusers of 70 group have been very private people, even when they were 25; and the agreers of 70 group have been just very open people, even when they were 25. Then, unlike the argument, the age is no longer determinant factor. That's what A is pointing out.

[sissixz]

oh -my-god, you really clear that up!!!!

so now I see, I didn't get the conclusion at all.

I thought it meant that elders are more private than young men, hence I thought it matched the premise.

Now I see!!

Thanks so much!!!

[ManhattanPrepLSAT2]

great response jiyoonsim!

[sumukh09]

I feel for asking given the thorough response above, but I still don't quite understand how A describes the flaw in the argument.

Here's my take on the argument:

10 000 random individuals of different age groups were asked to take part in a survey + survey found that older people were less likely to give out their financial information ---> older people are less willing to reveal personal financial information

[austindyoung]

Had trouble with this but got it correct after debating between (A) & (E). For me, working wrong-to-right was really valuable on this Q.

If I'm wrong here, let me know. But I think (A) works because it knocks down the causal relationship posited by the argument.

The argument is stating that old age is a reason for (a cause) for a non-response and that youth is a cause for responding.

If this is true, it would mean that if the youngins were asked these types of questions years later, they would decline. If the oldies were asked years earlier, they would answer.

But, what if these same oldies who would have declined answering the question (let's say at age 70) also would have declined at age 25? You can apply this logic to the young guns as well. If true, then it would be something else- an alternate cause- for the variation in response.

(A) is prodding at the need to actually have another survey to verify the conclusion of the argument. The poster above explained this. So, since the argument "offers no evidence that the individuals would have responded differently..." We can't say that people "in general" are like this.

Another thing to keep in mind is what "more likely" means. It means more than half. Let's divide these two groups at their logical extremes of this definition.

Oldies: 50.01% not respond
Youngins: 50.01% respond

Though this is somewhat tangential, it makes even more specious the claim that these proportions "clearly demonstrates" much at all. I was anticipating the flaw to be one of over generalization from a possible unrepresentative sample. (A) gets at this, I think, but in a more complicated way- which more difficult questions tend to do, even when you see the flaw.

HTH

Any concerns with what I wrote, then just post them.

[ohthatpatrick]

Awesome response.

As always, though, if you're still having trouble understanding any of this, let us know. No need to be bashful just because some explanations "clicked" for others.

With LSAT, you sometimes benefit from a bunch of people explaining a question their way ... there might be one person's way of phrasing it that finally gives you that "ah-ha" moment.

[amandarruff]

I chose C because it covers answer choice A with in itself. It assumes without warrant that age is the predicting factor. Which, encompasses the fact that they didn't covers the fact that they didn't check multiple years because they assumed age was the factor for the difference. It doesn't encompass that elderly may have more reason to not disclose then age either. I still do not understand this question. The last person to explain did a great job of breaking it down, but it still doesn't encompass this factor that if you assume something (the vulnerability in this case) that idea of vulnerability encompasses the other answers.

[ohthatpatrick]

It seems like you're unclear either on what (C) is saying or on what the argument is about.

(C) is saying that how old you are is the most important factor in determining how much money you make and how much savings you have. Can we get any of that from the argument?

The author concludes (not assumes) that age is RELEVANT to whether someone will reveal personal financial information.

(C) is much more strongly worded and is not talking about what the conclusion is talking about. It says that the author assumes that age is the MAIN determinant of people's income and savings LEVELS.

We have no idea about the actual income and savings levels of the old vs. young people in the survey (and it's irrelevant to the discussion). All we know about the old vs. young people in the survey is whether they were more/less likely to reveal personal information.

[WaltGrace1983]

I have some analysis to add for (C) and (E).

(C) is definitely wrong because the argument is concluding that age is a determining factor to levels of privacy ABOUT income and savings. We don't know anything about how much income or savings that these participants have. We just know a little bit about how apparently the more old you are the more likely you are to be private about DISCUSSING income and savings over the telephone. Now this answer choice could have been much more tempting if it had something like "assumes that age is the main determinant for privacy" - although that is basically the conclusion. I hope that clears up some confusion.

(E) is a really cool answer choice because it has a lot of great stuff in it - but in the wrong "order" so to speak. (E) is basically saying that, with true information about a given age group, we can make inferences about what is true of the individuals in that age group. So let's put this into the example:

-We asked people in the age group of 50-60 about income and savings
-The people within the 50-60 age group all generally refused to give out information

Thus, we can conclude that, in general, people who are 50-60 do not give out information (this is basically what the argument is concluding)

Now we have person X. Person X is 53 years old but was not interviewed over the phone in our survey. Yet because we know generally true stuff about people in the 50-60 age group through the survey, we can know something about person X: that is, X will probably refuse to give info on income and savings over the phone.

According to (E) though, the argument doesn't provide any reason to believe that what is true of a given age group is true of the individuals within that age group. In other words, what is true of 50-60 year olds may not be true of person X. That is right! This definitely is a flaw! For another example, just because we know that 13 year olds are generally very rebellious doesn't mean that Y, a 13 year-old, will be rebellious as well!

But is this what the argument is talking about? No! It is actually the opposite of what the argument is talking about - it is the opposite of argument's flaw! The argument is making assertions about what is generally true about an age group from individuals in that group! The argument is saying something like, "well since people in the survey who are 50-60 were more likely to refuse to give out personal information, 50-60 year olds are in general more likely to also refuse to give out personal information." Look at that conclusion...you see "in general." Look at the premises....you see that there are 10,000 randomly selected people. It is quite doubtful that they were able to interview everyone in a particular age group.

Thus, we go from the specific to the general in the argument.

Yet (E) goes from the general to the specific.

I really hope this helps!

[daijob]

Just want to double check whether I understand why E is wrong.
So E is wrong because it attacks wrong conclusion that the passage does not make, correct?
In the passage, the author concludes general tendency based on information of the specific group.
However, E says the author is wrong because the author makes conclusion for specific group based on general tendency.
So if E says something like provides no reason to believe that what is true of specific group does not mean true of a given age group in general, that would be better...correct??
(Would this be a candidate of correct answer anyway?)

Thank you

[ohthatpatrick]

You nailed it! It's backwards. It WOULD be fair to criticize the author's move from discussing a small sample of seniors and non-seniors, and then generalizing to seniors and non-seniors in general.

[Jahma002]

What A does is establish correlation. If you have no correlation then conclusion is invalid.

Think of their science questions, correlation is needed to make a conclusion or a hypothesis.

Even if the number is big, but still small proportion compared to the general population, you need some type of correlation. If your next experiment with 10k people shows a different answer then you are in trouble.

Specifically to this answer: in 2016 (true story) many elder people were targeted by callers from India pretending to be IRS and demanding cash payments.
After many warnings from real IRS, elderly people were more reluctant in providing financial information to people over the phone.

The conclusion states that the phenomena is general and always the case. Now we don't know that, maybe 5 years from now the elderly will feel different. Conclusion therefore is too strong without evidence.