PrepTest 108, Section 2, Question 6
News item: The result of a recent public(55 more words not shown)
The news item's argument is(11 more words not shown)
- Athe conclusion of(11 more words not shown)
- Bthe conclusion of(14 more words not shown)
- Cother pollsters in(7 more words not shown)
- Dsome people who(6 more words not shown)
- Epeople's opinions about(10 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
The survey has a real problem. If a pollster made up data, we have reason to question whether its results can be trusted. But watch the next move: does an unreliable survey make its conclusion false?
Suppose a badly conducted survey says most people support more investment in information technologies. Most people could actually support it. The pollster could have produced bad evidence for a claim that happens to be true. Exposing that bad evidence doesn't establish that the public believes the opposite.
What we’re looking for
That's exactly where the news item goes wrong. It moves from “some data were falsified” to “a majority does not favor more investment.” We haven't established that second claim. The flaw question asks what possibility the argument overlooks, so I'd look for the possibility that the survey's conclusion is still true despite the falsified data.
Working the answers
- ACorrect
Perhaps removing the fake data leaves enough genuine data to verify the same conclusion: most people favor more investment. Then the pollster's misconduct would be real, but the news item's claim about the majority would be false.
We aren't saying the remaining data definitely support the conclusion. The point is that the argument has not ruled that out. Bad evidence can justify withholding confidence; it doesn't, by itself, prove the opposite.
- B
Whether people accept the survey's conclusion is different from whether that conclusion is true. The public could believe a false claim or doubt a true one. This answer concerns the reaction to the survey, while the news item makes a claim about what the majority actually favors.
- C
Other surveys aren't the basis of this argument. Finding misconduct elsewhere would give us reasons to examine those studies, too, but it wouldn't tell us what the people in this country think about investment. We still couldn't move from unreliable data to the opposite conclusion.
- D
Dishonest respondents would be another possible problem with the evidence. That still wouldn't establish the majority's actual opinion. Adding a second reason to question the survey does not repair the leap from “we can't trust this result” to “this result must be false.”
- E
Opinions might change as technology develops. But the question here is whether the falsified data show that the survey's conclusion was false. A possible future change doesn't tell us what people favored when surveyed, and it doesn't justify the news item's inference.
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