#9 - If the winner of a promotional contest is selected

[Administrator]

Please post your questions below!

[dani23]

Hello,

I am completely lost on this question. I missed it on the actual LSAT exam this previous September and I missed it again as I am restudying my mistakes.

Thanks

[nicholaspavic]

Hi dani,

Welcome to the forum! This is a Strengthening type question that plays with some percentages in the stimulus to test our understanding of how this particular lottery operates. Note that the conclusion in the last line about "fairness" is what we are looking to strengthen.

By the way, the author is not making a particularly great argument here, as he is suggesting that the lottery is somehow cheating people by only awarding the prize to people who eneter within the first 2 days. When reading the stimulus, it occurred to me that the author had left out on crucial piece of information which I would really like to know. Namely, whether there were a lot of people who were entering the lottery early in the contest and then not so many people entering the subsequent 28 days. To illustrate my point, what whould you say if I told you that on the first two days of the lotteries being discussed, 95% of all the entries took place? Would the author's point about the fairness of the 90% of the winners being from that initial two-day group still hold?

In fact, it really would not. Because of course I would expect at least 90% if not 95% given the above hypothetical. That's why Answer Choice (C) works well here. It discusses the even rate of entry over the whole 30 days, thus strengthening the author's conclusion that this lottery was not fair.

Thanks for the great question and I hope this helps!

[lang023]

Hello!

I still don't understand why answer C is correct. This question has kept me up at night ! I understand that we are trying to strengthen "fairness", but it says the lottery DID NOT meet the fairness requirement so I thought that it would only make sense to look for an answer choice that strengthens the thought that the lottery did NOT meet the fairness requirement.
I have done plenty of strengthening questions before and this one is crazy ! I was pretty confident with my answer choice D, but I wasn't 100% sure. I was still pretty confident and now am blown away by the correct answer choice. How can I be certain that any answers I select in the future are the correct ones and how can I be certain that the question isn't trying to trick me? Thank you so much!!!

[Francis O'Rourke]

It's right that this is a strengthen question. Since the speaker's conclusion was that the lottery was unfair (it did not meet the fairness requirement), we want an answer that supports the idea that it was unfair.

Remember that strengthen does not mean "be positive!" If the author was criticizing something we want to strengthen the criticism. So we need an answer here that says the lottery was unfair, since that is what the speaker thinks.

Always make sure you clearly identify what the speaker believes before you attempt to strengthen the argument. It seems that you read the argument and then quickly forgot what the speaker's point was. Having a clear idea in your mind or noted on the page will help you avoid tricky mistakes like this one.

[ameliakate]

I understand why c is correct. If most (51% or more) entered the contest in the first two days, then the likelihood of winner among the early entrants increases. However, I find it difficult to eliminate answer choice D. On the one hand, if the directions were posted, conspicuously or not, all entrants had equal access to the directions. On the other hand, if the directions were conspicuously posted, then the entrants were at a disadvantage.

Is D incorrect because all the entrants were equally at a disadvantage?

Thank you!

[Adam Tyson]

You're on to something there, ameliakate, although I would say having the rules posted conspicuously (obviously, in the open) provides the same advantage to all entrants, not disadvantage. Have easy access to the rules helps, rather than hinders, the people in the contest.

Answer D does not strengthen the argument primarily because it fails to address the numbers-and-percentages ideas on which the whole argument was based. 90% of the winners coming from the first two days of registration is unfair only if that is unrepresentative of when all entrants signed up for the contest. If 90% of the entrants registered in the first two days, then it would seem entirely fair and reasonable for 90% of the winners to come from that group.

If this answer did something to give a special advantage to the early registrants, like "the rules were only provided to those who registered in the first two days", that would strengthen the claim that the contest was unfair. Everyone having equal access to the rules, conspicuous or not, actually looks to weaken the argument, because that seems fair rather than unfair. But it really does nothing because it leaves us still wondering about whether the percentages we were given actually tell us what the author thinks they do.

[andrewb22]

I got this one right and I think I understand why (C) is right, but the analytics site has this listed as a cause and effect question type. Is that correct, and if so can you highlight the causal reasoning here?

[Dave Killoran]

I got this one right and I think I understand why (C) is right, but the analytics site has this listed as a cause and effect question type. Is that correct, and if so can you highlight the causal reasoning here?

Hi Andrew,

Thanks for the question! The classification as Strengthen, CE is happily correct

Think of it in terms of: What caused the result where 90 percent of the winners came from the first two days? There are multiple possible causes for that, including that 90 percent of the entries were submitted in the first two days. But the author says that unfairness is the cause, and (C) helps reinforce that cause by killing off the option that 90 percent of the entries were submitted in the first two days.

Please let me know if that helps. Thanks!