LR Question 7 Explanation
QUESTION TEXT: Pollster: When opinion researchers need a population sample…
QUESTION TYPE: Necessary Assumption
CONCLUSION: Polls on the nation’s opinions would be less accurate if the census became voluntary.
REASONING: These polls rely on the census, and if the census were voluntary fewer people would participate.
ANALYSIS: Most glaringly here, the argument jumps from “fewer census participants” to “less accurate results”. There are people who are participating in the census only because it’s mandatory. It’s possible that they don’t pay attention to what they’re writing, and just fill it out randomly. If such people didn’t have to do it, it wouldn’t make it less accurate – their data was never accurate to begin with.
Similarly, the argument assumes that the people who would stop doing the census are in some meaningful way different from those who would still do it. If there were no differences, the accuracy wouldn’t change.
The argument also ignores the possibility that pollsters could get data from another source. If they could, then reduced census accuracy wouldn’t matter.
___________
- This option almost fooled me! What I missed at first was the word “not”. The argument assumes that census data is the only way.
- This is not an assumption required by the argument.
- CORRECT. If the people who didn’t participate were functionally the same as those who did, then the data would still be accurate.
- It doesn’t matter if the people who don’t participate now are similar to the people who would stop participating. This would still make the census data less accurate.
- It doesn’t matter if a different census has a different participation rate. This doesn’t tell us how accurate the data would be if it became voluntary.
Recap: The question begins with “Pollster: When opinion researchers need a population sample”. It is a Necessary Assumption question. Learn how to master LSAT Necessary questions on the LSAT Logical Reasoning question types page.
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