Logical Reasoning

PT145 · S2 · Q17 The radio station claims that

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The radio station claims that its new format is popular with listeners because more than three-quarters of the listeners who call in requests to the station say they are pleased with the format.

Conclusion

It's not very convincing to say that the new radio format is popular just because more than 3/4 of the listeners who call in requests say they're pleased.

Evidence

This would be as un-convincing as determining whether Candidate X is popular by asking only people who are already planning to vote for X.

Evaluate

The author is pointing out how quizzing people who listen to the radio station is a sampling error. By definition, if they're still listening to the radio station, they must approve of the new format.

Similarly (by analogy), if you only asked supporters of a certain candidate whether they approve of that candidate, you would get a really high percentage of people saying they support that candidate.

Goal

Look for an answer saying the author uses an analogy about political candidates to point out the sampling error with radio listeners.

17.

The argument proceeds by

  1. concluding that an inference is

    Bad Premise Match

    The author does conclude that an inference is flawed, but not because the survey is conducted by a biased party, rather because the survey is going off a self-selecting sample (people who still listen to the radio station after the format change).

    31% picked this

  2. Correct

    referring to an inference that

    Why this is right

    The author refers to the clearly flawed inference of measuring a candidate's popularity by asking only their supporters, in order to undermine an analogous inference about measuring the popularity of a new radio format by asking only current listeners. The "clearly flawed" part of this answer probably gives a lot of us pause, but when people say "But this is dumb. This would be like saying X", they're implying that saying X is dumb.

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

    62% picked this

  3. questioning the legitimacy of an

    Out of Scope: more reasonable inference

    The author does question the legitimacy of an inference, but she never proposes a more reasonable inference that could be made. She just shows by analogy why the the current inference is shady.

    1% picked this

  4. providing a direct counterexample to

    Out of Scope

    Out of Scope: counterexample Too Strong: false The author only attempts to show that a conclusion is inconclusive, not false. And there is no counterexample (you need a general principle/claim in order to have a counterexample). The political example is an analogous example — another specific story with the same general principle (self-selecting sample) as the radio example.

    4% picked this

  5. claiming that an inference leads

    Too Strong: contradiction

    Nowhere in the argument does the author claim that anything leads to a contradiction.

    1% picked this

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