#3 - A recent survey quizzed journalism students about the

[Administrator]

Complete Question Explanation

Flaw in the Reasoning. The correct answer choice is (C)

This stimulus provides the results of a recent survey of journalism students. When the students were
asked what stories they themselves wanted to read, most were interested in serious political stories,
and entirely uninterested in the currently more popular stories about celebrities and style trends.
Based on the results of the survey, the author concludes that publishers must be making some
mistaken assumptions about what the public is interested in reading:

• Premise: A poll of journalism students showed a much greater interest in reading
  articles about politics and government than in reading articles about trends and
  celebrities.
  
  Conclusion: Current publishing trends must reflect a misunderstanding of the public’s
  interests.

When the results of a survey are presented in a stimulus, there is often reason to be skeptical of their
validity. The problem in this case is that this is a survey of a very biased population—a bunch of
journalism students are not guaranteed to have the same reading tastes as that of the general public;
those fluff articles about celebrity gossip and lifestyle trends probably enjoy much greater popularity
among members of the general public than they do in a group of serious journalism students.
The stimulus is followed by a Flaw in the Reasoning question, so the correct answer choice will
likely point out the error in reasoning discussed above—a very biased sample is assumed to reflect
the tastes of the general reading public.

Answer choice (A): This choice describes a causal flaw, but the author does not confuse a cause with
an effect. Rather, the author invalidly draws assumptions about the general public based on a survey
of a very biased and homogeneous group.

Answer choice (B): The problem with the author’s reasoning is that an unrepresentative survey is
taken to represent the general population. The reasoning flaw is not, as this choice provides, that an
effect is taken as proof of intent, so this answer cannot accurately describe the flaw reflected in the
reasoning of the stimulus.

Answer choice (C): This is the correct answer choice. The survey is taken of a very specific group,
and the conclusion that is drawn involves an entirely different population. As discussed above, the
group that was surveyed is very biased, and this group cannot be assumed to share the opinions of
the general public.

Answer choice (D): This is an interesting wrong answer choice. The right answer, again, is that the
author is depending on an unrepresentative sample to draw conclusions about the larger population.
This choice provides that the language used creates an unfair representation of likely opponents—
this choice does not describe the flaw found in the stimulus, though, so it should be ruled out of
contention.

Answer choice (E): The author draws an unwarranted conclusion, but this is not the same as treating
a theory as though it were fact, so this choice does not describe the author’s flawed reasoning.

[az305203]

Is there Causal Reasoning in this stimulus? I can't seem to identify any but the test scoring on the Self-Study site has this as a Flaw CE

[Jay Donnell]

Hi az!

The causal reasoning here is certainly subtle, but it exists where all flawed causal reasoning surfaces: in the jump from the premise(s) to the conclusion.

We know that a majority of the journalism students questioned have a preference for real news stories over gossip and lifestyle pieces, and that potentially non-representative sample creates a flawed jump when it expands that group to the public, and that flaw is captured in the correct response of C.

The causal reasoning comes into play with the idea that the trends of the news are based upon what the public wants to see. Even though apparently it involves a false assumption on exactly what the public does want, the idea that the news bases its coverage in accordance to the public's wishes means that those wishes have causal power over the subject of the news broadcasts.

Certainly not the most obvious causal language, and the answer picked up on the more egregious flaw regarding a potentially biased sample, but that line of reasoning discussed earlier broaches just enough into the cause/effect territory to be worthy of mentioning.

Hope that helps!

[az305203]

It does, thank you! I got the question correct, but I am trying to expand my ability to strongly identify with causal relationships for next Saturday. You guys are the best

[Magonojo21]

I still had a few questions about the answer, I initially chose B, but was deciding between B and C. I decided to rule out C because of their wording, "opinions of a group unlikely to be representative." Maybe I don't know enough journalism students, but I thought that because it was not stated anywhere that journalism students are necessarily "unlikely" to be representative of non-journalism students, that B was a better choice.
Any feedback would be appreciated.
Thanks,
M

[katehos]

Hi magonojo21!

Something that is helpful to keep in mind when faced with Flaw questions pertaining to surveys is that there are three main types of errors: biased sample, misleading questions, and inaccurate responses. Here, once we see that journalism students were given a survey about journalism, some red flags should automatically go up. Though it's not specifically stated that journalism students are unlikely to be representative of the general population (which, given such a statement's damaging impact on the argument, would likely never be acknowledged by the proponent of this argument), any time conclusions are drawn from a survey about a specific field that was given to only people from that field, it's flawed to extend that conclusion to the general population.

For example: if you gave a group of mechanics a survey that asked how much knowledge they possessed about tools and fixing automobiles, then used that data to say that most people have a strong understanding of tools and fixing automobiles, it's likely this statement is untrue! The author of this argument does something very similar in this stimulus. So, we can see that answer choice (C) is correct.

Answer choice (B), on the other hand, does not seem to address any flaws within the argument. The stimulus does not say, for example, that because the journalism students prefer stories dealing with serious governmental issues, the school they attend must intentionally be pushing them towards governmental reporting. To further understand why (B) is incorrect, try identifying what effect is being used as evidence of an intention, and what intention is producing that effect. Truthfully, it should be difficult to identify these components, since they're not the flaw within the argument (but hopefully this exercise can prove useful by helping you understand why (B) is incorrect).

I hope this helps!!
Kate