PrepTest 121, Section 1, Question 24
Journalist: Although a recent poll found that more(90 more words not shown)
The reasoning in the journalist's(16 more words not shown)
- Asome of those(23 more words not shown)
- Ban education party(12 more words not shown)
- Cthe 16 percent(32 more words not shown)
- Da party needs(31 more words not shown)
- Esome of the(19 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
People can like an idea without joining a party or giving it money. The first three percentages don't surprise me. Someone might favor education, prefer to remain politically independent, and decline to donate.
But the historical requirement counts people willing to join OR donate. Are the 26 percent who would join and the 16 percent who would donate the same people?
If every donor is already in the joining group, the combined group is only 26 percent. If the groups are completely separate, their combined support is 42 percent. Partial overlap gives us something between those figures. We can't assume the smaller group sits entirely inside the larger one.
What we’re looking for
That's the flaw I'd look for. Even accepting the 30 percent requirement, the journalist hasn't established that this party falls short. We need to consider donors who wouldn't join, rather than quietly counting them all as people we've already counted.
Working the answers
- A
People failing to follow through on their promised donations would hardly rescue the party from the journalist's pessimistic conclusion. It also doesn't address whether the willing donors overlap with those willing to join. The overlooked possibility we're after could make the relevant group larger, not make the expressed support less dependable.
- B
Perhaps this party could be an exception to the historical pattern. But the conclusion already says long-term viability is unlikely, not impossible. A bare possibility of an exception doesn't expose the counting mistake. E shows a problem even if we accept the author's support requirement rather than ask for a different threshold.
- C
The requirement is about how many eligible voters are prepared to provide support in either specified way, not about a particular dollar total. Sixteen people giving enormous donations are still sixteen people. Replacing a large donor group with a smaller wealthy group doesn't establish that the stated percentage requirement has been met.
- D
Supporting the idea isn't the same as being prepared to join or donate. We were explicitly given those different levels of support. The majority who like the idea don't, merely for that reason, satisfy the particular kind of support the historical rule requires.
- ECorrect
Some donors might be outside the 26 percent who would join. Then the combined group is larger than 26 percent. For example, if another 5 percent of voters would donate without joining, the relevant total would be 31 percent, clearing the stated threshold.
E doesn't tell us there actually are enough additional donors to reach 30 percent. It points to an overlooked possibility, which is what the flaw question asks for. The missing information is the overlap between the groups. Their separate percentages alone don't establish that the combined group is too small.
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