I picked the right answer under timed conditions thanks to POE and force of habit, but when I went back to review it I was like WHAT the heck is going on with this!
Breakdown:
Survey: two particular classes of people, managers & entrepreneurs.
Data: entrepreneurs are generally more overconfident than managers.
Hypothesis: people who are especially overconfident are more likely to start a business than people who aren’t as confident.
Generalization and Appropriateness:
Two ideas tripped me up. First, the idea that the argument fails to mention details about how the survey was conducted. Second, the idea that the conclusion is about people in general and the data is about two particular classes. So, my red flag thoughts were:
I struggled with survey appropriateness issues. Because the identity of the survey is concealed, and I know nothing about it, I can conjure up multiple scenarios for both appropriate and not. So, I figured I’d leave it alone. Maybe a good answer choice regarding appropriateness would have to be something explicit and broad enough to exhaust all of the opposing non-appropriate alternatives.
I also struggled with the tempting generalization flaw! This is how I thought my way into and out of this idea. I interpreted the conclusion ‘overconfident people are more likely to start a business’ as ‘overconfident people are more likely to have a disposition (to start a business) that belongs to a different kind of people (businesspeople)’. This idea led me to the idea of generalization. I then realized that my interpretation was a little funky. The conclusion is actually saying ‘overconfident people are more likely to become entrepreneurs’. The idea of confidence can’t be ‘generalized’ because it’s a quality that every able minded human is capable of. For instance, if I were especially overconfident and Bill Gates is also especially overconfident, it would be weird for me to say that my overconfidence is totally different from his, or vice versa. The hypothesis is that I’d be more likely to become an entrepreneur than, say, my friend Jeff who isn’t as confident as me.
After knocking those two thoughts to the side I hit the answer choices…
Answer Choices:
(A) The only thing I know is that there was a survey. I don’t know anything else about it. This answer goes into detail about a few relevant topics, but because I don’t know anything about the survey, there could be something else about the survey to neutralize this fact. Knowing this is good, but it ultimately doesn’t tell me enough.
(B) The word ‘accurately’ is most off-putting to me because the argument doesn’t deal with evaluative judgments like this. The argument doesn’t predicate the idea of having a degree of accuracy in determining the odds of success.
(C) This feels promising for the argument in the sense it provides more research showing a strong correlation between confidence levels and success in business. First, it doesn’t tell me if the confidence is great or not; overconfident or not. Second, the ‘success in business’ idea is relatable to an idea that the argument indicates to be an irrelevant factor.
(D) This supports the relationship. It brings ‘overconfidence’ and ‘becoming an entrepreneur’ a little closer together!
(E) It feels like a wordy way to say if you know, then you know. I would think that high scorers on the LSAT closely corresponds to their confidence in their LSAT intellect. This seems indicative of the argument. Also, the argument never established the idea of ‘business acumen’.