Q15 - Few anarchists have ever performed

[nicolauria]

I've gone over this question a few times and I'm still confused about the 'absolute numbers' bit from the correct answer (A). Any help is greatly appreciated!

[christine.defenbaugh]

Great question, nicolauria, I'm glad you asked!

The distinction between absolute numbers and proportions is tested frequently on the LSAT, so having a firm grasp of the underlying concept is critical. So what are they?

Absolute numbers are numbers that are firm, concrete, real numbers: There are 5 ducks; 260 students study French; there are only a handful of tickets left (vague, but still a real number).

Proportions, on the other hand, simply tell you what the relationship is between two numbers: half of the cookies are frosted (5 out of 10? or 1200 out of 2400?); 10% of the books are biographies (1 out of 10? or 237 out of 2370?); most of the shells were broken (vague, but still a proportion - some percentage over half).

Tony argues that the connection between violence and anarchism is unwarranted. Why? Because "few anarchists ever performed violent actions." In fact, there are way more violent non-anarchists! These are references to absolute numbers (even those we don't know exactly what they are).

So, maybe there are:

violent anarchists: 10
violent non-archists: 100

Just looking at those numbers, it might seem like the anarchists are not so bad! But Keisha responds that the proportion of anarchists who are violent may be greater than the proportion of non-anarchists who are violent.

So, perhaps it breaks down like this:

--------------------Violent--------Total
Anarchists------------10------------12
Non-anarchists-------100-------100,000,000

Whoa! If that were the case, Tony's conclusion is in big trouble! The association between violence and anarchists just might be warranted!


Not Her Way
(B) While she does attempt to undermine the conclusion, she does not introduce any evidence that is incompatible with Tony's evidence.
(C) Keisha never takes issue with the accuracy of his premises; she simply introduces additional information.
(D) She never claims the anarchists and non-anarchists (violent or otherwise) have nothing at all in common.
(E) Keisha never argues that some people shouldn't be included in the data. Rather, she argues the data needs to be looked at in other ways (assessing the proportion rather than the absolute numbers).


Absolute Numbers/Proportions may show up in Flaw questions, or the concept may provide the basis for an incorrect answer on a Must Be True question!

Please let me know if this completely answered your questions!

[nicolauria]

Thanks so much for the detailed response Christine. I totally get it now.