LSAT 149 | Section 1 | Logical Reasoning: Q7

QUESTION TEXT: Rita: No matter how you look at them, your surveys of…

QUESTION TYPE: Point at Issue

ARGUMENTS: Rita argues the survey results are misleading. People lie, so the numbers are underestimates.

Hiro agrees that people lie. But he thinks that no one group of people is more likely to lie than others. So while all the numbers are underestimates, the relative rates should be accurate.

ANALYSIS: Much is less unsaid in this argument. Clearly, Hiro is surveying something shameful where people might lie. So, let’s make this concrete. Let’s say, for example, that Hiro’s surveys ask people whether they ever shoplifted. You’d expect some people to lie and hide their shoplifting.

Let’s also say that the survey was done in three countries, and these are the results:

France: 24%

Italy: 27%

Germany: 23%

So, can we conclude anything from these numbers? What is each person saying? Rita says the above results are all lies, as people hide the fact that they shoplifted.

Hiro agrees the numbers are too small, but thinks no groups is more likely to lie than the other. So, from his study we could conclude that Italy has more shoplifting than Germany, since we wouldn’t expect Italians to lie more than Germans. So Hiro thinks that even though his numbers are wrong, the results are useful for ranking groups.

Essentially Rita and Hiro disagree over whether there is any valid use of the results: Rita says no, Hiro says yes.

___________

1. CORRECT. See the discussion above. Rita thinks the survey results are a meaningless pack of lies. Whereas Hiro thinks we can at least use the results to rank groups against each other, as we wouldn’t expect one group to lie more than others. (This is what “relative rates” mean. One groups relative to another)
2. Both Rita and Hiro agree that people lie on surveys.
3. Both of them only talk about surveys, so we can’t know what they think of other measures.
4. Even Hiro agrees his numbers are underestimates. He says it directly in his third sentence. So Rita agrees with this and Hiro probably does too.
5. Neither Rita nor Hiro mentions sample size. The issue was lies, not numbers.

Recap: The question begins with “Rita: No matter how you look at them, your surveys of”. It is a Point at Issue question. Learn how to master LSAT Point at Issue questions on the LSAT Logical Reasoning question types page.

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