Q11 - University spokesperson: Most of the students surveyed

[mshinners]

Question Type:
Flaw

Stimulus Breakdown:
Most students want a different food vendor, but the only option is the one that was previously used. Therefore, the school should revert to the old vendor.

Answer Anticipation:
Goalpost alert! Goalpost alert! The goalposts have been moved!

The initial question posed to students was, "Would you like to replace the current food service vendor?" The answer was yes. However, based on later information, the question asked should have been, "Would you like us to revert to the previous food service vendor?" That's a different question. The majority of students might want to change vendors, but they might not want to change back to something they've already experienced. Whenever information is added after an opinion is taken, the opinion is no longer necessarily the same.

Correct answer:
(A)

Answer choice analysis:
(A) Boom. The spokesperson added information after opinions were collected. Those opinions might have changed with the added information (they must have switched from Hall Dining Services for a reason).

(B) Wrong flaw (Sampling). There's no reason to believe that the survey of university students is skewed.

(C) Wrong flaw (False Choice). The argument specifically states that other things are equal, so it does consider that there are other factors (it just rules them out).

(D) The argument only attributes the desire for change to "most" students, so it's not ignoring a potential disagreement.

(E) Wrong flaw (Term Shift). If the statement that the preferences of the majority of students should be adhered to was removed from this argument, it'd be the correct answer. However, with that there, it's not making this jump.

Takeaway/Pattern:
Opinions can change based on new information, so be sure that all relevant information was available when there is a survey conducted.

#officialexplanation

[laurenvarg]

Hoping someone can help me with this.

I understand why A is correct. When asking the question the students were responding to "Do you want to change food vendors" not "do you want to go back." This makes sense, and I did choose A.

However, the question says "most of the students surveyed" while the premise "since...the preferences of the majority of the students should be adhered to." While we know most of the students surveyed replied that they would change it, we don't know if most of the students surveyed represents most of the students as a whole.

So B. Relies on a sample that is unlikely representative had me caught. I went with A because it made sense but I don't see how B is wrong. It might not be "unlikely" representative but we really don't know that it's the "majority."

[ohthatpatrick]

I see you're concern. It DOES hinge on "likely" to be representative.

What you want is an answer that sounds more like
"fails to establish that the sample of students surveyed is representative of the whole student body"

In other words, you're right: there is also a sampling issue occurring in the conclusion. We went from "most surveyed" to "most students".

But we can't say that's inherently illicit because "ANY sample is likely to be unrepresentative".

We'd have to complain something more nuanced, like "Generalizes from a sample which may be unrepresentative".

[andrewgong01]

I am still a bit confused with what Matt meant in his solution key for removing "E". Is it because the argument has a specific prefmise that states the wishes of the students must be adhered to and therefore we will switch back to the vendor? Moreover, the argument never said this was going to be popular with students; rather, it was just the wishes of the students.

Now I am glad I only read Choice A and moved on; I might have considered "E" after seeing this

[ohthatpatrick]

I'll be honest -- I don't really understand Matt's explanation there either.

For me, the easiest way to disqualify (E) (and many Flaw answers that use this same term) is "merely".

"Merely on the grounds that" = there was ONLY this one premise.

There were several supporting reasons for why we should rehire Hall Dining (one of which being that 'for a variety of reasons, the only alternative to the current vendor is Hall Dining').

That's enough to disqualify (E).

[JamesM914]

I see you're concern. It DOES hinge on "likely" to be representative.

What you want is an answer that sounds more like
"fails to establish that the sample of students surveyed is representative of the whole student body"

In other words, you're right: there is also a sampling issue occurring in the conclusion. We went from "most surveyed" to "most students".

But we can't say that's inherently illicit because "ANY sample is likely to be unrepresentative".

We'd have to complain something more nuanced, like "Generalizes from a sample which may be unrepresentative".

Hmmm I still don't see why B is wrong. I can see why more law schools are starting to accept GRE results instead of LSAT scores because of questions like this one.

[schmid215]

This is an awful question.