Q15 - Statistician: A financial magazine claimed

[mcrittell]

I get why E is correct, but I'm unsure why C is incorrect.

[mcrittell]

Is C incorrect because it casts doubt on the validity of the surveys in question--thus strengthening the statistician's conclusion?

[ManhattanPrepLSAT1]

You got it! But for others who might be looking at this same question, let's just flush this one out.

The conclusion drawn by the statistician is a criticism of a claim by a financial magazine that North Americans are more concerned with personal finances than with politics. The evidence the statistician uses is both a claim about the representativeness of the survey's readership and potential bias in the way the survey phrased it's questions.

We're asked to strengthen the criticism of the financial magazine's claim - or in other words weaken the financial magazine's claim.

Each of the incorrect answers will strengthen the argument:

(A) casts doubt on the credibility of the financial magazine and would weaken their claim, thereby strengthening the argument.
(B) gives us reason to believe, though far from proves, that the magazine will be found to be inaccurate in their current claim.
(C) calls into question the survey's accuracy by presenting other survey's that would have to be considered plausible until considered more thoroughly - thus strengthening the statistician's criticism.
(D) strengthens the criticism of the survey since this survey, according to the statistician is both unrepresentative and biased.


That leaves us with answer choice (E). This answer is irrelevant since it brings in something wholly unconnected with the argument and doesn't help us establish a relative importance between the two issues of personal finance and politics.

Doest that answer your question? And thanks for bringing this one to the forum!

[Dtodaizzle]

What if we change the wording to answer choice B-

The conclusion drawn in *some* magazine surveys have been disproved.

What this then be a valid answer? (We know that "some" (<50%) of the magazine surveys have been disproved, but we don't know if the remaining ones have or have not been disproved.

[maryadkins]

It would be weaker for sure. I'm not sure if you are asking how it would compare to (E), but if so I think (E) would still be weaker since it's irrelevant.