Logical Reasoning

PT6 · S3 · Q5 Four randomly chosen market research

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Four randomly chosen market research companies each produced population estimates for three middle-sized cities; the estimates of each company were then compared with those of the other companies.

Evaluate

We're looking for potential indicators like Causal / Pivot / Conditional / Comparison wording. The last sentence Ends with a Pivot, which is usually a big clue on Inference questions that the correct answer will reward us for thinking about the net effect of combining the pivot idea with what came before it.

Ultimately there is a Comparison/Contrast thing going on.

For cities with a stable population, companies had similar estimates.

For the city with a rapidly growing population, companies had very different estimates.

Goal

This looks like a setup for the Causal Difference-Maker pattern in which "Difference 1 explains Difference 2".

In this case we want an answer rewarding us for understanding that whether cities had a stable / changing population seems to cause whether companies will agree / disagree in their predictions for population.

Let's look for a safely worded version of some idea like, .

Or, .

5.

The passage provides the most support for which one of the following?

  1. It is more difficult to

    Unsupported Comparison

    We think it's more difficult to estimate the population of a city whose population is changing than a city whose population is stable. The passage didn't present any distinction between middle sized and smaller sized cities.

    1% picked this

  2. Population estimates for rapidly growing

    Unsupported Quality: accurate enough

    We know that population estimates are varying widely for the rapidly growing city. Those estimates can't all be correct, since they vary widely. So why should we think that such an estimate "can be accurate enough to be useful"?

    6% picked this

  3. The rate of change in

    Too Strong: does not fluctuate

    If something "does not fluctuate" that means it stays the same forever. We don't have any way to support the extreme claim that the rate of change of population in quickly growing cities stays the same forever (in fact, if the rate of change did stay the same, then it would be easy for these companies to make a prediction. The fact that they couldn't settle on a prediction suggests the opposite of this answer).

    4% picked this

  4. Correct

    The market research companies are

    Why this is right

    This is pretty strong, but not all the way extreme: "likely to be equally reliable". Ultimately, it's a loose answer but the best available. We can support this since when it came to the stable cities, the four estimates varied little from company to company. We can say that they're likely to be equally reliable since they're making the same prediction. That doesn't mean that they'll be reliable. It means that their reliability will be comparable. If the estimates are correct, then these companies all seem to be reliable. If the estimate are 25% too high, then these companies are all slightly unreliable. But since their estimates of stable cities were the same, we would expect them to be similar when it comes to the reliability of their estimate.

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

    85% picked this

  5. Estimates of a city’s future

    Unsupported Comparison: future > current

    This comparison was not only not made, but it defies common sense. It's always going to be easier to measure a current population accurately than it would be to accurately estimate the future.

    4% picked this

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