#4 - A club wanted to determine whether it could increase

[Administrator]

Complete Question Explanation

Flaw, #%. The correct answer choice is (B).

Answer choice (A):

Answer choice (B): This is the correct answer choice.

Answer choice (C):

Answer choice (D):

Answer choice (E):

This explanation is still in progress. Please post any questions below!

[slavake]

Hi! I was wondering what makes the answer B rather than D?

[Beatrice Brown]

Hi Slavake! Happy to help you with this question

First, let's break down the structure of the argument:
Premise 1: The club's president conducted a survey during a Tuesday meeting of all members present.
Premise 2: 95% of the members at that Tuesday meeting said that they could make Tuesday meetings without difficulty.
Conclusion: The attendance problem is not a result of schedule conflicts.

Since this is a flaw question, we want to prephrase an issue with the argument that casts doubt on the validity of the conclusion. The stimulus relies on survey data, so we want to think of the several common survey errors: biased sample; improperly constructed survey questions; and inaccurate responses from respondents.

In the stimulus, the club's president concludes that problems with attendance at Tuesday meetings is not due to schedule conflicts. He bases that conclusion on a survey conducted of members that attended one of the Tuesday meetings. However, this can't be a representative sample to determine whether there are generally schedule conflicts with Tuesday meetings. If someone is attending this meeting on a Tuesday, then it is highly unlikely for them to respond to the survey that they have a schedule conflict with Tuesdays. In other words, the argument in the stimulus relies on a biased sample.

Answer choice (B) matches our prephrase and describes the flaw of a biased sample. By making a conclusion about members in general based on a survey of members that attended a Tuesday meeting, the club's president is generalizing from an unrepresentative sample.

Answer choice (D) is incorrect because none of the premises offered contradict one another. There is no contradiction between surveying members present at a Tuesday meeting and finding that 95% of the members sampled do not have difficulty attending Tuesday meetings. The 5% that reported that they do have difficulty attending Tuesday meetings can be explained by the following situation: these members usually wouldn't attend Tuesday meetings because of a scheduling conflict but happened to be able to make it to that particular Tuesday meeting and so were included in the survey sample.

To sum up, prephrasing on flaw questions will almost always be helpful in determining the right answer choice! In this case, answer choice (B) matched our prephrase.

I hope this helps, and let me know if you have any further questions!

[emilyjmyer]

Why is B wrong? It seems like they treat Tuesdays as being good for the whole club without exception when that may not be the case.

[Rachael Wilkenfeld]

Hi Emily,

Answer choice (B) is correct here, for exactly the reason you stated! Asking the people who already showed up on Tuesday if Tuesday is an ok day to meet is asking a sample of people that have already been able to come on a Tuesday. You'd be missing the entire demographic of people who cannot attend on Tuesdays.

Good work!

[emilyjmyer]

Hi Emily,

Answer choice (B) is correct here, for exactly the reason you stated! Asking the people who already showed up on Tuesday if Tuesday is an ok day to meet is asking a sample of people that have already been able to come on a Tuesday. You'd be missing the entire demographic of people who cannot attend on Tuesdays.

Good work!

Thank you Rachael!

Then why is C wrong? It seems like these two answers are describing the same flaw to me.

[Adam Tyson]

Answer C is wrong because what it describes did not happen in the argument, Emily! There is no generalization in the argument; there is no claim about "most cases"; and there is no claim about applying something "without exception."

Answer C is describing something like this:

Typically, the club meets on Tuesdays, and most of the club members have no problem with that. Therefore, if every meeting was on a Tuesday every member of the club would find that to be acceptable.

This argument isn't based on taking a general claim (what usually happens, what is typical) and extending it too far by claiming it must be true all the time. It's relying on a survey of people who are already at a Tuesday meeting and using that to infer that Tuesdays were a good day to have the meetings. The survey is unrepresentative because it doesn't include all the people who had a schedule conflict and couldn't be there when the survey was taken!

A good Flaw answer has to be accurate, meaning it must describe exactly what happened in the argument and nothing that did not happen. If it describes something that didn't happen, it's a loser!