Q20 - Voting records regularly show that people over 65

[mshinners]

Question Type:
ID the Flaw

Stimulus Breakdown:
Baby Boomers vote at higher rates than Millennials. Therefore, civic engagement is decreasing.

Answer Anticipation:
Whenever I see "percentage" in an ID the Flaw question, I immediately think Percent vs. Amount flaw. However, here, the conclusion is also about percents (the rate of engagement), so I have to look elsewhere.

Here, there are two things that stand out. We're comparing Boomers to Millennials - is that a fair comparison? Not really. Maybe Millennials will vote more as they get older. To make the comparison fair, we'd need to compare Boomers when they were the same age as Millennials to current Millennials. Also, is voting a perfect proxy for engagement with the political system? Nope. Maybe Millennials get involved elsewhere but skip the voting booth.

Correct answer:
(A)

Answer choice analysis:
(A) Definitely leave it on the first pass. This deals with the unfair comparison between Boomers at 65 and Millennials at 20, so I'll pick it after ruling out the other answers.

(B) Wrong flaw. This answer reflects a Percent vs. Amount flaw. But since the conclusion isn't about the number of Millennials vs. Boomers, this flaw isn't present. This is a great trap answer - one that reflects a flaw that isn't present in the passage, but some of the concepts related to it are.

(C) Not a flaw. Phenomenon can be discovered through evidence without being understood.

(D) Wrong flaw. This answer reflects the Reversed Causality flaw, but there's no cause/effect cited.

(E) Tempting! This sounds very similar to (A), so after eliminating (B), (C), and (D) I'd compare these two. However, (A) gets at the unfair comparison. (E) brings up the possibility that both groups might change in the future, not that the comparison doesn't line up.

Takeaway/Pattern:
The LSAT will often throw in some concepts to try to get you to think a flaw is present when it isn't. Here, the stimulus talks about percents, but not amounts. It's also frequent to see causation without correlation. Don't fall for that trap!

#officialexplanation

[andrewgong01]

Question Type:
ID the Flaw

(A) Definitely leave it on the first pass. This deals with the unfair comparison between Boomers at 65 and Millennials at 20, so I'll pick it after ruling out the other answers.

(B) Wrong flaw. This answer reflects a Percent vs. Amount flaw. But since the conclusion isn't about the number of Millennials vs. Boomers, this flaw isn't present. This is a great trap answer - one that reflects a flaw that isn't present in the passage, but some of the concepts related to it are.

(C) Not a flaw. Phenomenon can be discovered through evidence without being understood.

(D) Wrong flaw. This answer reflects the Reversed Causality flaw, but there's no cause/effect cited.

(E) Tempting! This sounds very similar to (A), so after eliminating (B), (C), and (E) I'd compare these two. However, (A) gets at the unfair comparison. (E) brings up the possibility that both groups might change in the future, not that the comparison doesn't line up.

Takeaway/Pattern:
The LSAT will often throw in some concepts to try to get you to think a flaw is present when it isn't. Here, the stimulus talks about percents, but not amounts. It's also frequent to see causation without correlation. Don't fall for that trap!

#officialexplanation

For "A" my interpretation of it until I read what you wrote since June was that what it meant by "early stage of one generation" was like people who just entered the young adult stage or just entered retirement and latter stage were people just about leaving the young adult phase in life or like 10 years after retirement. So I thought what "A" was getting across was that it was comparing say the people who just entered the young adult group against the people who have been in the 65+ age group for a long time ( or vice versa); clearly based of this reading of the choice it would have been eliminated on first pass.

Can you elaborate a bit more on why "E" is wrong because I chose "E" on the actual exam with a similar pre-phase about the faulty comparison (and the fact that it assumes No Voting= Disconnected. Even after reading "A" correctly, I am still not seeing what it is that makes it better than "E". Without "E" I would understand what makes "A" correct but with "E" I am not seeing the finer distinction.

"E" in itself to me does not commit to the fact that that both the younger and older group's voting patterns will change; rather if the younger generation's pattern will change (and the older generation's pattern does not need to change) it suffices to meet what "E" is getting at : People can change as they get older. And, since they can change, perhaps the people who vote a lot more were also once people who did not really vote. That seems pretty similar to me at what "A" tries to get across : People may change over time and hence it is an unfair comparison. What is it about "E" that does not bring up the comparison fault in the way that "A" does?

[ohthatpatrick]

Regarding (A), your problem was thinking we could say
"one generation" = early adulthood
"another generation" = retirement years

But as you typed up your thoughts, you correctly referred to young adulthood and retirement as "age groups" (we could also say "stages of life").

Your 'generation' is your generation, from birth to death (and for long after you're dead). It doesn't change.

Generation, without looking it up, essentially means "a group of people born during a given 10-15 year time frame".

Regarding (E), the author doesn't 'OVERLOOK the possibility' of voting patterns changing in the future ...

she concludes "citizens are becoming INCREASINGLY disconnected from the political system", so the author is EXPECTING the possibility of voting patterns changing among age groups (for the worse, since each passing generation is less engaged with the political system).

[JuanM114]

"Can you elaborate a bit more on why "E" is wrong because I chose "E" on the actual exam with a similar pre-phase about the faulty comparison (and the fact that it assumes No Voting= Disconnected. Even after reading "A" correctly, I am still not seeing what it is that makes it better than "E". Without "E" I would understand what makes "A" correct but with "E" I am not seeing the finer distinction."

"E" in itself to me does not commit to the fact that that both the younger and older group's voting patterns will change; rather if the younger generation's pattern will change (and the older generation's pattern does not need to change) it suffices to meet what "E" is getting at : People can change as they get older. And, since they can change, perhaps the people who vote a lot more were also once people who did not really vote. That seems pretty similar to me at what "A" tries to get across : People may change over time and hence it is an unfair comparison. What is it about "E" that does not bring up the comparison fault in the way that "A" does?[/quote]"



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I committed the same error on the actual exam as discussed above. I saw the faulty comparison and immediately thought the answer would touch on the possibility that the young adults voting patterns could change in the future. However, would E be a better answer choice if instead of stating, "among age groups" it stated, "among the young adults?"

I also don't see how the conclusion includes the fact that voting patterns will change in the future. I feel again that the argument is assuming that voting patterns won't change among the young adults in order to conclude that citizens will continue to be disconnected from the political system.

[andrewgong01]

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I committed the same error on the actual exam as discussed above. I saw the faulty comparison and immediately thought the answer would touch on the possibility that the young adults voting patterns could change in the future. However, would E be a better answer choice if instead of stating, "among age groups" it stated, "among the young adults?"

I also don't see how the conclusion includes the fact that voting patterns will change in the future. I feel again that the argument is assuming that voting patterns won't change among the young adults in order to conclude that citizens will continue to be disconnected from the political system.

For your latter point, I think it is because it says folks are becoming increasingly apathetic with "each passing generation" which, in turn, means that it is a situation that keeps getting worse with each new generation (i.e. every new generation we expect to see less and less people within the generation to vote). Importantly, this political apathy is not a temporary situation limited to just the current young adults in question that will go away after the current generation is no longer a young adult ; rather this apathy will continue to persist and worsen into perpetuity.

I am not sure about the former, but I think what would make "E" correct for sure is if it said something like "ignores the possibility that voting patterns among and within the quoted generation may change in the future"

[JeremiahL668]

I also found E extremely tempting, but here was my logic behind this question:

I think the big hint is the word choice in the stimulus. The stimulus states that this INDICATES[b][/b] that citizens are becoming increasingly disconnected.

By using the word indicates, the stimulus is just telling us that it SEEMS like citizens are becoming increasingly disconnected, and that word implies that the stimulus leaves itself open to the possibility that voting patterns may change in the future.

Answer choice A points out where he was wrong to jump to his conclusion. He used statistics which might not indicate anything at all. The baby boomers may have possibly exhibited the exact same voting patterns when they were younger, which would destroy the explicit assumption the stimulus states as a conclusion. If the older people showed the same voting patterns when they were younger, this could just indicate that younger people hate or don't believe in voting.

[MuhammadZ236]

I immediately eliminated A because i thought that i have no idea what a generation is from the stimulus. generation is not defined.
Not sure where i went wrong but i think it has to do with confusing generation with age i guess. A just never clicked. Does anyone else felt the same?

[JohnZ880]

So frustrating. I understood the flaw perfectly. The answers are just way more tricky and confusingly worded on the more modern LSATs (75+). I feel like the modern tests don't test logical skills as effectively as the earlier tests, but rather reward a test taker's ability to sort through bs and understand confusing sentence structures.

I feel defeated. I can't look at this question and improve my logic skills. Rather, it seems I have to 'improve' my ability to procure meaning from purposely misleading and confusingly written answer choices.

[MitchellL341]

Question Type:
ID the Flaw

Stimulus Breakdown:
Baby Boomers vote at higher rates than Millennials. Therefore, civic engagement is decreasing.

Answer Anticipation:
Whenever I see "percentage" in an ID the Flaw question, I immediately think Percent vs. Amount flaw. However, here, the conclusion is also about percents (the rate of engagement), so I have to look elsewhere.

Here, there are two things that stand out. We're comparing Boomers to Millennials - is that a fair comparison? Not really. Maybe Millennials will vote more as they get older. To make the comparison fair, we'd need to compare Boomers when they were the same age as Millennials to current Millennials. Also, is voting a perfect proxy for engagement with the political system? Nope. Maybe Millennials get involved elsewhere but skip the voting booth.

Correct answer:
(A)

Answer choice analysis:
(A) Definitely leave it on the first pass. This deals with the unfair comparison between Boomers at 65 and Millennials at 20, so I'll pick it after ruling out the other answers.

(B) Wrong flaw. This answer reflects a Percent vs. Amount flaw. But since the conclusion isn't about the number of Millennials vs. Boomers, this flaw isn't present. This is a great trap answer - one that reflects a flaw that isn't present in the passage, but some of the concepts related to it are.

(C) Not a flaw. Phenomenon can be discovered through evidence without being understood.

(D) Wrong flaw. This answer reflects the Reversed Causality flaw, but there's no cause/effect cited.

(E) Tempting! This sounds very similar to (A), so after eliminating (B), (C), and (D) I'd compare these two. However, (A) gets at the unfair comparison. (E) brings up the possibility that both groups might change in the future, not that the comparison doesn't line up.

Takeaway/Pattern:
The LSAT will often throw in some concepts to try to get you to think a flaw is present when it isn't. Here, the stimulus talks about percents, but not amounts. It's also frequent to see causation without correlation. Don't fall for that trap!

#officialexplanation

Can we say that on the LSAT, we should be skeptical of comparisons between earlier and later age groups? Is there some LSAT principal that we can infer from this question?

[Laura Damone]

I don't think that specific type of comparison is common enough to draw a principle from it. I do, however, think that whenever you see a comparison in a Flaw question, you should investigate it for a Comparison Flaw! Same goes for comparisons in Strengthen and Weaken questions. There are a lot of ways to make a bad comparison, and the LSAT will test at least some of them on every LR section.

Percent vs. Amount flaws are often comparative in nature. Bad analogies are always comparative. Reduction to the absurd is inherently comparative as well. I think noting when comparisons happen and using them to drive your approach to those questions is more helpful than a super-specific takeaway about comparing across age groups