Logical Reasoning

PT121 · S4 · Q1 While 65 percent of the

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While 65 percent of the eligible voters who were recently polled favor Perkins over Samuels in the coming election, the results of that poll are dubious because it was not based on a representative sample.

Conclusion

The results of that poll are dubious

Intermediate Conclusion (because)

The poll was not based on a representative sample.

Intermediate Conclusion

It's quite likely that Perkin's supporters were overrepresented.

Evidence (given that / and)

The poll was conducted at high-priced shopping malls. Perkins advocates for the upper-middle class.

Evaluate

The #1 pattern on Main Conclusion is that the conclusion is some Pivot/Rebuttal claim. The #2 pattern is that the conclusion is in the first sentence. This argument essentially combines those patterns, by putting a rebuttal claim "the results are dubious" in the first sentence.

When we hear an opinion from the author in the first sentence, we want to guess that it's the conclusion and listen for whether the author seems to be supporting/defending that claim.

Given that X, it is probable that Y is a structure that indicates that X is a premise that supports the conclusion Y. So they are tempting us to pick the last claim of the paragraph, and making it even more tempting because it is *a*, conclusion, just not the main one.

Goal

Find the best available meaning match for "The results of the poll are dubious".

1.

Which one of the following statements most accurately expresses the main conclusion of the argument?

  1. The poll was intentionally designed

    Too Strong / Unrelated to Goal

    This answer implies intentional design to favor Perkins, a claim not made in the argument. The conclusion is about the results of the poll, whereas this answer doesn't address the results of the poll. And the argument questions the poll's accuracy due to the sampling methodology, not deliberate bias.

    6% picked this

  2. Samuels’s supporters believe that they

    Opposing Idea / Unrelated to Goal

    This answer presumes to speak for Samuels's supporters, which the argument does not do. The argument focuses on questioning the poll's accuracy due to its sampling method, not on what Samuels's supporters might think.

    3% picked this

  3. Correct

    The poll’s results probably do

    Why this is right

    This accurately captures the main conclusion about the poll's legitimacy. If we're saying that the result of a poll are dubious, we're saying "we can't trust that what the poll says is an accurate reflection of reality".

    Skill tested: Main Conclusion · how this choice captures the argument's function is the move to repeat next time.

    88% picked this

  4. Samuels is quite likely to

    Inference-Bait / Unrelated to Goal

    This tries to go one step farther than the conclusion: "If the author thinks the poll that favors Perkins had dubious results, she must think that Perkins isn't actually favored to win the election, so Samuels must be." We're not being asked to figure out what the author might say "next". We need to just match the actual conclusion: "the poll results are dubious". This answer isn't about poll results, so it can't be a match.

    0% picked this

  5. Those who designed the poll

    Unstated / Inference-Bait

    This doesn't look anything like "the poll results are dubious". Since it's not a claim about the poll results, it can't match our conclusion. This is designed to read the author's mind and say something else she'd probably believe. Since she believes the poll was not representative based on where it was conducted, she might presumably say that "the pollsters should have thought more about conducting this in a place that didn't skew towards Perkins". Main Conclusion isn't about invisible ideas. It's about matching the visible conclusion.

    3% picked this

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