Q21 - The odds of winning any major

[julesbuf]

Hi, can anyone explain why the answer to Q21 is D? I really struggled with this one for some reason.

Thanks!

[noah]

Happy to help. BTW, next time, please write in the first few words of the problem so we're sure we're helping you with the correct one.

The conclusion of this argument is that many people probably overestimate their odds of winning the lottery. Why? Because the media pays a lot of attention to the few folks who win.

The gap? Does seeing coverage of someone winning the lottery make other overestimate the odds of winning? Maybe people realize it's still a 1 in a gazillion chance. (D) helps patch up this hole by stating that indeed, at least some folks do incorrectly estimate their odds when they learn about someone winning. If we negate that answer and learn that nobody overestimates their chances because of this, the argument falls apart.

(A) is incorrect because the argument does not state that the media downplays the odds, simply that the media gives a lot of attention to the winners.

(B) is irrelevant - we don't care about non-winners receiving attention.

(C) is tempting, however it's not necessary that media attention be the ONLY way that people could be lead to incorrectly estimate their odds. It's not a problem if there's another way.

(E) is reversed. We need some people influenced by the media to have incorrect estimations of their odds. (E) has some people recognizing their odds are insignificant.

Does that clear it up?

[raoulduke23508]

I answered C as well and have pondered what has been discussed, but media attention is part of the focus of the argument. What I have personally come to feel was my mistake in picking c was the part of the answer that specifically refers to "people who purchase lottery tickets" this is outside the scope of the argument. No where in the paragraph does it mention people who buy lottery tickets just a general feeling that you will because......

[noah]

That's a good point - the reference is a bit too specific. Since you want to master every question, it's good to also see the more formal logic reason of why (C) doesn't provide a necessary assumption.

[zainrizvi]

Can someone help with the negation of (C)?

If it were not for media attention, most people who purchase lottery tickets would not overestimate their chances of winning a jackpot


Negate the quantifier

If it were not for the media attention, none of the people who purchase lottery tickets would not overestimate their chances of winning a jackpot

So if NONE would NOT, that means its all or some?

If it were not for the media attention, all the people who purchase lottery tickets would overestimate their chances of winning a jackpot???

That doesn't seem right

[noah]

Good question. First off, let's take a step back from the tricky wording and focus on what (C) is about: (C) tells us that media attention is the thing responsible for overestimating their chances of winning. It's not necessary that the media is the only thing responsible. What if there were something else, such as greed, that keeps folks overestimating their chances? Who cares - the media might have an effect as well.

More formally, the negation of (C) is that if it weren't for the media, not most people - i.e. less than half - wouldn't overestimate their chances. More clearly: if no media, then less than half wouldn't overestimate.

Since the conclusion uses a vague "many" there isn't a chance this negation is going to destroy the argument. Who cares if losing the media would only keep 45% from overestimating?

Tricky wording!

[pss3544]

I chose B because you negate it the argument will be substantially weakened -- if most nonwinners also get media attention, the misleading effect of winner's media attention can be reduced. Any thoughts?

[noah]

I chose B because you negate it the argument will be substantially weakened -- if most nonwinners also get media attention, the misleading effect of winner's media attention can be reduced. Any thoughts?

How do we know that effect will be reduced just because a lot of other people are getting attention. For example, what if political officials are getting lots of attention because they are sending out inappropriate pictures of themselves. Does that affect the impact of the times that lottery winners are shown?

You have to make way too many assumptions to make the negation of C weaken the argument. Also, a negated necessary assumption doesn't weaken the argument, it breaks it.

[cwolfington]

The assumption is made in the last sentence, when the author jumps from "awareness" to "overestimating", which is diagrammed: A->O

(D) makes this explicit by stating the assumption

(A) is a reversal, which states: O->A
(B) is irrelevant
(C) is wrong because it says "purchase", which the stimulus doesn't mention
(E) is irrelevant

[steves]

I had picked (A), but now I see that, in addition to the issues noted by others above, both (A) and (C) refer to MOST people while only a reference to SOME people --as in (D)--is warranted.

[seychelles1718]

Is there a logical gap from "the very few people...receive a great deal of attention from media" to "most people have at least some awareness..."?
Or is it safe to assume via common sense that if some people gain a lot of media coverage, most people will be aware of it? I guess there could a gap because receiving lots of media attention doesn't necessarily mean MOST people know about it. So, the sentence said SOME people, instead of MOST people, would there be a gap?

[ohthatpatrick]

It looks like you're looking for gaps between PREMISES, which is not the correct thinking game to be playing.

Your job is to find gaps between the entire body of PREMISES (EVIDENCE) and the CONCLUSION.

Treat premises as facts. What can you infer from combining these two facts?
1. If an event receives extensive media coverage, most people come to have at least some awareness of the event
2. When people win major jackpots, it receives extensive media coverage.

----------------------
we can infer:
Most people come to have at least some awareness of when "people win major jackpots".

What is the gap between
"most ppl have at least some awareness of people who win major jackpots"
and
"many ppl greatly overestimate the odds of winning a major jackpot"?

That would be (D).

[andrewgong01]

Good question. First off, let's take a step back from the tricky wording and focus on what (C) is about: (C) tells us that media attention is the thing responsible for overestimating their chances of winning. It's not necessary that the media is the only thing responsible. What if there were something else, such as greed, that keeps folks overestimating their chances? Who cares - the media might have an effect as well.

More formally, the negation of (C) is that if it weren't for the media, not most people - i.e. less than half - wouldn't overestimate their chances. More clearly: if no media, then less than half wouldn't overestimate.

Since the conclusion uses a vague "many" there isn't a chance this negation is going to destroy the argument. Who cares if losing the media would only keep 45% from overestimating?

Tricky wording!

For negating "C" is it allowed for us to also have negated as If it were not for media attention most people who purchase ticket would overestimate their chances? In other words, instead of negating the quantifier I negated the thing the group of people do. It seems like its the same thing on a rough level but it may run into problems in that it assumes you are either over estimating or under estimating and not correctly estimating? But I am not sure if the original way Noah negated also is assuming you can either only over or under estimate

[ohthatpatrick]

Negating "most" statements generally speaking IS the same as negating their main verb.

GIVEN:
Most clowns are scary.

QUANTITY NEGATION:
Less than half of clowns are scary

VERB NEGATION
Most clowns are not scary

Those two mean the same thing.
Most clowns are not scary = less than half of clowns are scary

Technically, both negations are wrong, because the negation of "most" is really "it's NOT more than half", which translates into "it's HALF OR LESS".

But I don't think we've ever seen a question test this tiny distinction, so it seems worth it to live with the slightly fuzzy habit of saying "LESS than half" or "most DON'T".

NOTE:
This does NOT work with "Some". With "some", you MUST negate the quantity, not the main verb, in order to arrive at a contradictory statement.