LR Question 24 Explanation
QUESTION TEXT: A survey of a city’s concertgoers found that almost…
QUESTION TYPE: Paradox
PARADOX:
- People don’t think the concert hall is a good concert hall.
- But they don’t want to tear it down and replace it with a better one.
ANALYSIS: I couldn’t prephrase this question. When that happens, just make sure you’ve clearly understood the paradox, then look for answers that explain it.
Most wrong answers will only address half of the paradox, if they address it at all. We need something that explains both facts.
___________
- This suggests the survey was biased in favor of replacement. If so, this makes the situation even more confusing: why didn’t people decide to replace the concert hall?
- This doesn’t explain anything. It just confirms a fact we saw in the stimulus: people don’t want the concert hall torn down. But that’s still confusing, because people also don’t think the concert hall is a good concert hall….
- This explains why the construction industry might want the concert hall torn down. It doesn’t explain why citizens agree the concert hall doesn’t work yet don’t want to tear it down.
- CORRECT. This addresses the paradox. People want a new concert hall. And they do want to replace the existing hall. They just don’t want to tear it down. Maybe the building is a nice building, and would work well for another purpose.
- This makes the situation more confusing by adding a new advantage to tearing down the concert hall.
More Resources for Paradox Questions
- Intro Course lesson: This intro course lesson covers Paradox questions.
- Mastery Seminar lesson: This LR Mastery seminar lesson covers paradox questions.
I found this question frustrating. Reading the explanations, I can understand D, however I feel like I can also construct an argument for A.
I picture in my head people for the “Tear Down the Concert Hall” organization outside after a concert. They say “hey we’re part of an organization that wants to tear down this concert hall, mind if we ask you a few questions?” Concert goers say “uh ok I guess” as they’re walking to their car. Then the survey person asks a couple leading questions, like “do you feel like the seats could be more comfy?” etc and then end with “so can I get your support for tearing down this building?” and the people say “oh no that’s not what we wanted.” I guess I pictured it like a car salesperson asking leading questions trying to get you to agree to something you didn’t. To me, that addresses the paradox — they do think the seats aren’t that comfy but it’s not that big of a deal like they survey people are making it out to be, because they’re asking biased questions.
Is that an unreasonable reach?
I know you said this literally last year, but I followed the same reasoning as you. I chose A initially, and while I understand how D is correct, I still think A is a solid choice!
The key is that an answer should work without additional assumptions. On top of A, we ALSO have to assume that the survey was horribly constructed.
If the survey was instead well constructed, then I don’t think A makes sense. An answer has to stand on its own without an additional restriction in how to interpret it. Also, if the author says the survey “found” these facts then we should give credence to that unless it is strongly contradicted. Hope that helps!
From my reading online, no one was tempted by E, but I’m still actually struggling to eliminate it. While it says “many popular singers…”, a reasonable-person would presumably interpret that to be popular within the general population, rather than among this particular set of concertgoers, no? So imagine if this were a uniquely high-brow, elite area and the existing patrons want to maintain the status quo with respect to the type of artists (say, more indie/classical whatever) that play at the current, shabby venue. Perhaps the more popular artists are actually more popular in that city and draw many new concertgoers, but drive away existing concertgoers….Am I off my rocker on this one?
It’s good to use outside knowledge where everyone would agree that something is a certainty. But in this case you’ve just taken a *possibility* and ran with it.
The most sensible interpretation here is that the increase in popular singers and musicians would be a good thing. Popular also has many interpretations: it doesn’t have to mean low class, it can simply mean “well liked”, including people who are well liked within elite tastes.
Note: This is an old comment but I wanted to clarify the point.