Logical Reasoning

PT121 · S1 · Q22 In a poll conducted by

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In a poll conducted by interviewing eligible voters in their homes just before the recent election, incumbent candidate Kenner was significantly ahead of candidate Muratori.

Given That ...

A poll right before the recent election (people called at their homes) indicated that the incumbent Kenner was way ahead of Muratori

How Can It Be That ...

M ended up winning the election?

Evaluate

It seems like we either need an answer that suggests - this poll was wrong. it was unrepresentative of the real feelings of the electorate at that point. it was a biased sample.

- the poll was accurate at the time, but something changed in between the poll and the actual election that swayed the electorate enough that the balance of opinion shifted towards M.

Goal

So ...

22.

Which one of the following, if true, most helps to resolve the apparent discrepancy described by the statements above?

The positions taken by Muratori
No Impact
Dissimilar to each other doesn't give either person an inherent advantage or disadvantage, so this doesn't help us explain anything about who's leading / who's winning.
1% picked this
Kenner had held elected office
Unrelated to Goal
Kenner's past doesn't matter. We either need to know why the poll was inaccurate, or how things changed between the poll and the election such that leader in the poll didn't win the election.
1% picked this
In the year leading up
No Impact
The poll was taken just before the election, so the people being polled had already experienced and processed the political scandals this answer choice is describing. The scandals were earlier in the year, so they were already being factored in to the respondents' minds when they responded.
13% picked this
Six months before the recent
No Impact
The poll was taken just before the election, so the people being polled (the pool of eligible voters) had already updated to the newly expanded electorate. The difference between the poll and election results can't be explained by something that happened six months before the poll / election.
16% picked this
Correct
In the poll, supporters of
Why this is right
Several LSAT questions historically have validated a common sense connection between motivation / turnout / electoral success. People being asked in their home, "Who you like in this upcoming election" might include a lot of people who later flake out and forget to vote. If you only were getting 45% support in the polls but 90% of your supporters turned out to vote, you could easily beat the person getting 55% support in the polls with only 1/2 of their supporters showing up to vote. So this answer is trying to explain the gap between poll and election, based on a difference between how motivated the voters for M were. They didn't do as well in polls, but their supporters all made sure to vote because it was important to them. Is this one of the more strained, unfair, ridiculous "asks" of LSAC ... that we weave together the story I just told in order to make sense of this as a correct answer ... and that we do so based only on the puny strength of language that "supporters of M were more likely to say important"? Yes. You should be pretty mad at this answer, but then as the rage subsides, remind yourself that this game boils down to best available. Sometimes the best available on Strengthen, Weaken, and Paradox is shockingly thin. But it's more than nothin'.
Skill tested: Paradox · how this choice captures the argument's function is the move to repeat next time.
69% picked this

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