Q24 - Over the last 25 years,

[bbirdwell]

This is a really tricky problem.

So, we have this ratio:
"avg. price paid for new car" to "average individual income."

And we know that over the last 25 years, the top number has increased in relation to the bottom number.

From this, the author concludes that individuals who buy new cars spend, on average, a larger proportion of their incomes than did individuals 25 years ago.

The logical gap here is tough to spot, and tough to articulate. But it must have something to do with the notion of "average." It's sort of like the ski injuries problem you asked about. What's missing from the discussion are the actual numbers, or any mention of exactly *who* these "average individuals" are, or *how many* of them there are, or how many cars they buy.

So let's think about that for a minute. Take the perspective of someone debating with this author and think of ways that his/her conclusion might not be quite right.

What if mostly super rich individuals buy cars these days, for example? Sure, the price of cars has gone up relative to the "average" income, but if most folks who are actually doing the buying are gazillionares, then it's not true that individuals spend a greater proportion of their income on cars, is it?

What if there are more companies and families (as distinguished from individuals) buying bigger cars these days? This could drive the "average" price of a car up, but it wouldn't change the proportion of an individuals' income spent on a car, necessarily. Maybe individuals are buying the cheapest cars out there, and the "average" is just inflated by all the families and companies buying up more pricey autos.

(E) nails this second "What if" scenario. And we need not have the imaginative exercise above to see this. All we need to do is recognize in the beginning that something is amiss with the notion of "average" and "individual." Consider the other choices.

(A) So what? The argument is not about households. It's about individuals and how much of their income they spend on cars.
(B) Used cars? Who cares!
(C) might be a tempting answer because of the wording, but it strengthens the argument!
(D) seems to point at the stats somehow, but doesn't affect the argument at all. It doesn't matter if there are more people just "out there." It only matters how many of them, or what proportion of them are buying cars as individuals.
(E) is the only one left! And if individuals now make up a smaller proportion of new-car sales than they did 25 years ago, then the notion of "average price paid" is no longer comparable between individuals from the two different time periods, and the author would need more specific data to back up the conclusion.

Note that (E) does not make this conclusion impossible. It merely creates skepticism, or adds new facts that need to be addressed before the conclusion can be drawn with confidence. This is enough to "weaken."

[pistachio2014]

Ruled out all answer choices and reluctantly chose C. I understand why C is wrong since inflation probably is already factored in ("steadily increased in relation to average individual income"). I don't understand why the correct answer is E. Please help!

[ManhattanPrepLSAT2]

This is a tough question, in large part, I believe, because the issue that the right answer addresses is NOT the issue we typically associate with this type of question --

Notice that the argument involves somewhat well-hidden proportions -- price of car relative to income both now and 25 years ago.

Most problems involving somewhat well-hidden proportions will typically try to get you on a proportion vs amount issue (a proportion of money spent does not equate to an amount), but that's not the case here --

Instead, the right answer, (E), hits on a different issue -- a mismatch between the premise and conclusion -- between "average price paid for a new car" and "average price paid for a new car by individuals." The author assumes these to be the same, but they are not -- it could be that the evidence is true based on cars bought by government, businesses, taxi companies etc, so we cannot use it (without an assumption) to reach any conclusion about individuals who buy cars.

Therefore,(E) weakens the argument by showing that the bond between premise and conclusion is not as strong as the author assumed.

Hope that helps!

[rustyjkent]

Why would (E) be a better answer than (A)? I understand why you can choose (E), but I cannot understand why it is so much stronger than (A)? I must be missing something.

Thank you

[lsat42010]

I understand what the stimulus is asking but still very confused about how E is the correct answer. I'd really appreciate any further explanations.

[Greatsk8erman]

No offense, but that is a seriously, seriously vague explanation. It is still a better explanation than I can even think of coming up with, but it is still built off of two what-ifs that seem almost impossible to rationalize in the middle of a timed 35 minute section.the only way that I could see myself successfully getting a question like this correct is if I eliminated all the wrong answer choices, but sadly in using POE, this was one of the wrong ones eliminated. The biggest take away I am getting from your explanation in this type of question type is that when you see any of the following words: average, amount, increase, decrease, proportion, percent, number, you need to immediately engage into number/percentages mode and immediately start picking away things that do not match up. I do greatly appreciate your explanation, since it has allowed me to reach this type of understanding. Thanks!

[bbirdwell]

There is a quickly-noted POE in the explanation above. Please let me know if you have specific questions.

The takeaway you got from it was pretty much the intended one. Any time percentages or proportions are used, anticipate assumptions regarding those numbers. Think about "who" each of the groups involved is and whether they remain consistent. This will help inform your POE on future questions.

It is totally possible to do a problem like this in 35 minutes - we do it all the time. The key is knowing that sometimes, a tough problem like this one is going to take longer than average, so it's imperative that you go as fast as possible on the easy ones.

[mxl392]

Couldn't E very easily be wrong because:

- Sure, less cars are sold, but only the more expensive ones remain to be sold. Perhaps a bunch of people hit their mid-life crisis and also got laid-off, and decided to buy sports cars. I don't know; I don't see how E serves to weaken the argument that individuals are spending more on cars.

Let's say 100 cars were sold to individuals 25 years ago, at 10k each. Now, 50 cars are sold to individuals, at 15k each. Income has gone up from 60k to 61k. The argument is still true, and E has not weakened the argument.

[etwcho]

For this question the answer can be very vague and weak. Yes the stimulus is about numbers and percentages but that doesn't mean you can forego other attributes such as language scope and etc. When I was solving this problem one thing I noticed was that the conclusion was WAY to strong for the given premise, which the conclusion says "this increase indicates..." how can one be so sure that the comparison of averages 100% indicate such change? If the conclusion stated "this COULD increase blah blah" then yes I would say answer E wouldn't be an answer.

Therefore as long as an answer points at this issue of one sided conclusion saying that "hey! you present such premises but if what I'm saying is true the conclusion can go both ways!", that will be sufficient to weaken it.

And I don't think you should be breaking out equations to solve such problems like these. I majored in statistics in undergrad and never had to fiddle around with calculations so far....although I would love to....xD

[sumukh09]

So from what I've gathered after reading the explanations for this question and answer choice E) is that the "individuals" part of the conclusion is sketchy because it might not just be individuals that are buying these new cars which subsequently drives up the average? Aren't families and companies comprised of individuals though?

[etwcho]

sumukh09 - Yes the families and companies are composed of individuals, but that would be an overstep into whole another boundary of assumptions.

I agree with you that (E) isn't the strongest answer but as long as the other answers suck and if the correct answer has a "chance" to weaken, then that would be sufficient to be a good answer. In my opinion, at least for these kind of questions, the focus shouldn't be on dissecting the answer to an oblivion but rather focus on why the other 4 are wrong.

a) OOS
b) OOS
c) Strengthener
d) OOS
e) Weak but a weakener regardless

[tommywallach]

Hey All,

Yeah, there seem to be a lot of complaints around this question, but I don't think it's actually that bad. Consider it like this:

The average time for the Tour de France has gone down in the past ten years. This indicates that the average bicyclist in the Tour de France is faster now than ten years ago.

Do you see the problem? It could be that every team has ONE person whose speed is incredible, and the rest of the team hasn't actually improved. That's the same error as in this prompt. Just because the average price has increased doesn't mean that individuals spend more. Many cars are purchased by businesses that buy in bulk (to say nothing of married couples), so we can't conclude anything about individuals who buy cars.

Also, one person complained about never needing to use equations to do LR. This is true, but misses the point. It's not a question of equations, but of using numbers to illustrate what's happening. Often when the wording of statistics based questions is confusing, I'll look at some example numbers to see what's going on. I recommend this to anyone struggling with a tough statistics-y question.

Hope that helps!

-t

[theanswer21324]

Thanks for the great discussion. Would it be fair to say that the stimulus has a "whole-to-part" flaw?

[tommywallach]

Hey Theanswer,

Yep. I'd say that's a fair way to describe it.

-t

[Mab6q]

I choose E here, but I had a hard time eliminating A. However, looking back at it, the stimulus says that "individuals who buy new cars today", not families. That's what's wrong with A. The argument is telling us that these individuals buy it, without the help of people in their household.

[Alvanith]

To make this easier to understand, I just would like to use some silly numbers to illustrate.

Avg.Price-------Avg.Income------------Year
$1------------------$20------------25 years ago
$5------------------$30------------20 years ago
$10-----------------$40-----------15 years ago
$15-----------------$50-----------10 years ago
$20-----------------$60-----------5 years ago
$25-----------------$70-----------now

From this chart, we can see that the average price of a new car and the average income of individuals increase every year. And the average price of a new car increases steadily relative to the average individual income.

Imagine this, 25 years ago all cars were bought from individuals. No non-individual-buyers. So, the ratio of the average price paid by an individual relative to average individual income was 1:20.

Then imagine for the following years individuals only bought cars that were worth $1 but the non-individuals bought more expensive cars. So the average price individuals paid for the new car was always $1 for these years, and the ratio of the average price paid by an individual relative to average individual income decreased every year from 1:20 to 1:70. Meanwhile, since the rest of the cars were bought from non-individual buyers, the average price paid for new cars in general (different from the average price paid by individuals)increased steadily.

Because the average price individuals paid for new cars was always $1 but the average price paid in general increased every year from $1 to $25, like answer (E) said, the sales to individuals make up a decreasing proportion of all car sales. But this does not mean, like the argument said, that individuals now spend, on average, a larger amount relative to their incomes compared to 25 years ago. Rather, in this example, individuals spend a smaller amount relative to their incomes on average.

[oscey12]

Hi, in reading the stimulus I anticipated an answer that would show that although the average price of new cars increased, that doesn't mean that the average price for a new car paid by an individual increased. That seems to be the point, but I couldn't connect any answer choice to it and I still fail to see how E addresses it. A lot of people have noted the flaw, but I didn't see an explanation of why E calls it out.

If individuals now make up a smaller proportion, I don't understand how that shows that they pay less than the present day average price of a new car. It seems to me that this answer choice requires another assumption in order to actually weaken the argument.

Any suggestion on how to efficiently bridge the gap between the flaw and choice E would be appreciated thanks!

[simon.liu93]

I've been thinking about this problem quite a bit so I'll try to explain it in my own words, after reading over the past responses.

The first sentence is the evidence:

The average price paid for a new car has increased in relation to average individual income.

The second is the conclusion:

Therefore, individuals who buy new cars today spend a larger amount relative to their incomes than their counterparts.

For the sake of simplifying, let's just assume that average individual income stays the same. So, the argument is saying that a higher average price paid means a higher average price paid by individuals. Do you see where the argument is weak? It is assuming that what occurs in general can be applied to a subgroup (individuals). Now, with that in mind, let's look at the choices.

(E) says that sales to individuals are a smaller proportion compared to what they used to be. This hits the argument where it is weakest! It weakens the argument because it questions the inference the author is making, which is: "What is true in general (the average price paid) must be true for individuals (average price paid by individuals)."

As a thought experiment, let's assume that 25 years ago there were two people, Bob (who purchased a new car for 20% of his $10 income, or $2) and Jill (who purchased a new car for 10% of her $10 income, or $1). The average price paid for a new car is $1.50. The ratio is 1.5:10.

And then, today, Bob buys another new car for the same price, 20% of his $10 income, or $2. But, Company A also buys a new car. Except, they buy it for $10.

This follows the evidence right? The average price paid for a new car has increased in relation to average individual income.
1990 - 1.5:10
2015 - 6:10

Okay, so you look at the ratios above and you say "This increase in average price paid shows that individuals are spending a larger amount relative to their incomes."

But, that doesn't make sense, does it? Because Jill didn't even buy a car. So the amount that individuals spend, on average, actually decreased relative to their income ($1 per individual or a ratio of 1:10).

(E) shows that you'll have to look past the ratios above and find out the average price paid of individuals in order to properly draw the conclusion.

[shmhf666]

I initially chose A because I thought If there are more wage earner nowadays, then maybe individuals within a household can buy a car together and the average purchase price of an individual can go down and thus weaken the argument. But wait a minute , that is actually not what is happening in the argument, the argument is clearly saying that the average car purchase price of individual has gone up.And you are never supposed to deny the premise or situation in the question.

After a second thought, I finally recognized what happened here: the question shift my understanding of what is the amount of money of what we pay for a car and what is the price tag of a car(that's the same in all situation except when we encounter AVERAGE)

It is actually tricking me to believe that average price paid for a car is equal to the average price tag on the car.

that's not true because we can see the situation in two ways : the average price of the car in the market has actually gone up,and its speed is faster than individual income , so we now have to pay a greater percentage of our income on cars which is valid reasoning when we think only individual buy cars. The second hypothesis is that the price tag has not changed at all, but the proportion of population who are not individual are buying more expensive cars than usual , so the average purchase of a car of the population as a whole has gone up.

And Answer choice E clearly catch this gap on average and the whole/part flaw here.

hope this help others who chose A for the same reason.

[andreperez7]

Looking over the explanations it seems that answer E, by saying individuals buy a smaller portion of the new cars before, suggests that there are others who buy the new cars at perhaps higher prices -- say with options, like sunroofs -- which suggests that the prices paid by individuals aren't the averaged price. Maybe, individuals buy the cheaper model of the new car, and businesses and families buy more expensive new car models. (This is also known as price discrimination in economics.)

I think the LSAT skillfully hid this jump from average price in general to average price for a specific subset ( i.e. individuals) by presenting a set-up that usually deals with the jump from relative to absolute numbers. That is quite the sleight of hand, indeed.