Q18 - In a poll of a respresentative

[ManhattanPrepLSAT1]

The evidence states that more people voted the province’s capital the best city to live than any other city. The conclusion is that most people in the province prefer life in a large city to life in a small city. There are two mistakes in this argument and the more obvious is one is a distraction. The correct answer plays off the less obvious flaw. The obvious flaw is that they may prefer the province’s capital for some other reason besides the fact that it’s a large city. They may put up with the fact that it’s a large city in order to get some other advantage (political power, subsidies, who knows what). The less obvious flaw, is that more people could vote for the province’s capital than any other city without a majority of residents of the province voting for the capital. To see that here’s an example

45% Province’s capital (large city)
30% City B (small city)
25% City C (small city)

This flaw is expressed perfectly in answer choice (E)

(A) is off topic. It is not relevant what people outside of the province think.
(B) is off topic. It is not relevant what people outside of the province think.
(C) is not a flaw committed in this argument. Arguments always assume the evidence to be true. This argument says that the poll is representative. It would be better to find a flaw related to drawing the conclusion from the evidence.
(D) is the most tempting of the incorrect answer choices, because it plays off the more obvious flaw. If this answer choice had been about people who preferred the province’s capital to small cities, it would have been a better candidate.
(E) correctly describes a weakness with this argument.

[cdjmarmon]

Im still not following the "less obvious flaw." The argument doesnt say that the majority of the people who voted for the provinces capital were residents of the capital or anything about a majority of a small or large city voting.

I understand what your saying and it makes perfect sense. If 1000 people vote for the capital that may only be 1% of the population, etc. However, I do not see how it applies to this problem.

[ManhattanPrepLSAT1]

understand what your saying and it makes perfect sense. If 1000 people vote for the capital that may only be 1% of the population, etc. However, I do not see how it applies to this problem.

I'm discussing the difference between a plurality and a majority. The evidence is sufficient to establish a plurality of voters for the capital (a large city). A plurality is simply the top vote getter. But a majority must be more than half, so the evidence is insufficient to establish that most voters voted for the capital.

The argument doesnt say that the majority of the people who voted for the provinces capital were residents of the capital or anything about a majority of a small or large city voting.

Right, this argument is not about living in a particular city. Though one would typically expect that people would vote for their own city, right? If everyone voted for their own city, than the largest city would win, and yet even in the United States, New York may be the largest city and may get the most votes, but wouldn't have "most" Americans voting for it.

Let me know if this is still unclear!

[jimmy902o]

my concern with this question is that if feel like E is a premise debooster. The stimulus says outright that the pole is "representative of a provinces residents". shouldnt we take that to me equal votes from each city??

[timmydoeslsat]

my concern with this question is that if feel like E is a premise debooster. The stimulus says outright that the pole is "representative of a provinces residents". shouldnt we take that to me equal votes from each city??

That is not the implication of what E is saying.

Take a step back.

We know that the poll is representative of the province. We also know that a certain large city was picked most often to be the place where one would want to live.

Just for hypothetical purposes:

Large City A: 5,000 votes
Small City B: 4,500 votes
Small City C: 4,400 votes
Small City D: 4,300 votes

As we can see, it does not have to be the case that a majority of voters want to live in a large city. Just because that was picked most often does not tell us that most people would want to live there. In fact, in the hypothetical above, the data suggests that people generally prefer to live in a small city.

[coco.wu1993]

I understand why E is right but I don't get why D is wrong. Just because the capital happens to be the largest cities in no way means that they are most selected because residents prefer large cities to small ones. Isn't it a correlation-causation flaw?

[kjjida9797]

just wanted to make sure why D is incorrect,

D says that the argument 'overlooks the possibility that the people who preferred small cities over the provincial capital blah blah'. Am i correct to assume that D is incorrect because of the SMALL cities? Since the stimulus is saying that people preferred large city, D seems out of scope. If so, if the word 'small' was changed into 'large' would it make D a better choice?

[maryadkins]

I think if "small" were changed to "large" in (D) and if we struck out "over the provincial capital" (because it wouldn't make sense to keep it if we change "small" to "large"), yes, (D) would be a better answer than it is.

[Emmeline Ndongue]

" The argument doesnt say that the majority of the people who voted for the provinces capital were residents of the capital or anything about a majority of a small or large city voting.

The stimulus said the poll is representative of the province's residents, so whether the the province's residents vote for the poll doesn't really matter, as we know as a fact that it can represent them.

I definitely see the flaw in this question: "one could prefer the province capital not for its large size but for other reasons." This seems to be what D is pointing to, but it actually plays around with its wording. Suppose it should address "why ppl vote for the province capital not bc of its size", instead D addresses "why ppl vote for cities other the province capital not bc of its size". I wonder if this would've been a problem for D and could've been eliminated on this cause.

E is the same flaw but in another form directly related to the result of the poll. I failed to think of this while doing the PT so I picked D. Had I thought of the most voted might not have been the majority, I would choose E. But really, I think the guy who created this saw it coming, they knew that ppl would identify the same flaw in diff form mentioned in the last paragraph and go straight to the answer choices, leading to the incorrect D.........