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Evaluate argument Veritas

by buoyant » Wed Jan 08, 2014 9:21 am
Following a state-wide boom in voter registration and participation, Lakeview's election board claimed that the increased participation in its precinct resulted from the new busing campaign that brought many voters to their neighborhood polling station on Election Day.

Which of the following, if it could be carried out, would be most useful in an evaluation of Lakeview's assessment of the causes of the increased voter participation in its precinct?

A) Determining the average increase in voter participation in each neighborhood of Lakeview.
B) Using polling data to predict the participation rates for the upcoming election in Lakeview's precinct.
C) Comparing the total number of voters participating when the busing campaign brought them to their neighborhood polling station to the total number of voters participating before the busing campaign.
D) Comparing the increase in voter participation in Lakeview to the increase in participation in precincts demographically similar to Lakeview that did not implement busing campaigns.
E) Comparing the long-term impact of the busing campaign on Lakeview's voter registration patterns with the short-term impact of the busing campaign on Lakeview's voter participation.

[spoiler]OA: D[/spoiler]

[spoiler]
Why is C incorrect?
Can someone please explain why is D better than C?[/spoiler]
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by Mike@Magoosh » Wed Jan 08, 2014 12:21 pm
buoyant wrote:Following a state-wide boom in voter registration and participation, Lakeview's election board claimed that the increased participation in its precinct resulted from the new busing campaign that brought many voters to their neighborhood polling station on Election Day.

Which of the following, if it could be carried out, would be most useful in an evaluation of Lakeview's assessment of the causes of the increased voter participation in its precinct?

A) Determining the average increase in voter participation in each neighborhood of Lakeview.
B) Using polling data to predict the participation rates for the upcoming election in Lakeview's precinct.
C) Comparing the total number of voters participating when the busing campaign brought them to their neighborhood polling station to the total number of voters participating before the busing campaign.
D) Comparing the increase in voter participation in Lakeview to the increase in participation in precincts demographically similar to Lakeview that did not implement busing campaigns.
E) Comparing the long-term impact of the busing campaign on Lakeview's voter registration patterns with the short-term impact of the busing campaign on Lakeview's voter participation.

[spoiler]OA: D[/spoiler]

[spoiler]
Why is C incorrect?
Can someone please explain why is D better than C?[/spoiler]
Dear buoyant,
That's a great question, and I am happy to help. :-) This is a very high quality question: Veritas writes some good ones.

First of all, we know there was "a state-wide boom in voter registration and participation." We don't get any info about this, but SOMETHING caused a big increase throughout the state. Now, Lakeview said its huge increase was primarily due not to this SOMETHING (whatever it was) but to their busing program. Are job is to evaluate --- did buses really make the big difference in Lakeview? Or did the same SOMETHING that affected the rest of the state also affect Lakeview, and then, the highly motivated voters just happened to get on buses to get where they wanted to go? That's what we need to decide.

C) Comparing the total number of voters participating when the busing campaign brought them to their neighborhood polling station to the total number of voters participating before the busing campaign.
Well, this would tell us that there was an increase (which we know already), but it would do less to elucidate the reason for the increase. If the busing campaign and the statewide surge in voters happened around the same time (which the argument seems to suggest), then if the increase happened right then, we wouldn't know to which cause to attribute it. Knowing this would not necessarily help us at all. This is not correct.

D) Comparing the increase in voter participation in Lakeview to the increase in participation in precincts demographically similar to Lakeview that did not implement busing campaigns.
This is very helpful. Apparently, every town in the state saw an increase in voters, due to the statewide SOMETHING. If Lakeview increased no more than any other town, it wouldn't make sense to give Lakeview's increase a totally different explanation; instead, what caused everyplace else to increase also caused Lakeview to increase. On the other hand, if Lakeview had an increase that was considerably larger than comparable towns, that would call for an explanation that was unique to Lakeview: i.e. the busing campaign. This would be a crucial set of facts to determine. This is the correct answer to the question.

Does all this make sense?
Mike :-)
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by buoyant » Thu Jan 09, 2014 12:34 pm
Awesome explanation Mike!

Very much clear now.

I hadn't noticed the difference (passage is talking about the view of only one of the towns in the whole state).
Hence we can compare the statistics in Lakeview with those of other towns.
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by David@VeritasPrep » Thu Jan 09, 2014 4:05 pm
Mike has given a great explanation here!

I just wanted to chime in with some statistics about this question. Since it is from the Veritas question bank I was able to look at the response curve that this question has generated from over 1500 student responses.

The statistics indicate that this question is above the 75th percentile difficulty level and perhaps higher. It is a difficult question but the item response data shows that it is a fair one.

It is appropriate that you and Mike discussed options C and D. At this point 746 people have selected option C and 734 people have chosen the correct answer, D. The next most frequently chosen answer has only been selected 27 times!

For anyone who has not yet tried the Veritas Prep Free Practice Test or Free Question Bank. The links are:

Free Practice Test: https://www.veritasprep.com/gmat/free-gm ... tice-test/

Free Question Bank: https://www.veritasprep.com/gmat-question-bank/

Thanks!

David
Veritas Prep | GMAT Instructor

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by Sankeerthana » Sun Jan 12, 2014 8:13 am
So a precinct is typically a district within a particular state correct?

The question stem is: "Which of the following, if it could be carried out, would be most useful in an evaluation of Lakeview's assessment of the causes of the increased voter participation in its precinct? "

Correct me if I am wrong, here we are trying to assess what is the cause of increased voter participation in this precinct alone. C provides better information to ascertain what is the cause of increase in this precinct. Had the question stem been "Which of the following would be most useful to evaluate Lakeview's assessment of the causes of increased voter participation state-wide", then D would have been a better option. Experts?
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by Mike@Magoosh » Sun Jan 12, 2014 8:11 pm
Sankeerthana wrote:So a precinct is typically a district within a particular state correct?

The question stem is: "Which of the following, if it could be carried out, would be most useful in an evaluation of Lakeview's assessment of the causes of the increased voter participation in its precinct? "

Correct me if I am wrong, here we are trying to assess what is the cause of increased voter participation in this precinct alone. C provides better information to ascertain what is the cause of increase in this precinct. Had the question stem been "Which of the following would be most useful to evaluate Lakeview's assessment of the causes of increased voter participation state-wide", then D would have been a better option. Experts?
Dear Sankeerthana,
First of all, yes, a precinct is a part of a state --- it is a voting block, a voting district, within a state.

My friend, you fell for a brilliantly constructed trap answer. It is very important that you understand this question, so that you don't fall for other traps in other questions. Yes, we want to understand what caused the increased voter participation in this precinct alone, BUT this is against a background in which everything increased throughout the state. In other words, if Lakeview had done absolutely nothing, their voter participation would have increased simply because it increased everywhere in the state. Therefore, if Lakeview is trying to claim that the busing campaign produced an increase, then the burden of proof is on them to demonstrate that they had more of an increase than they would have had from whatever increased everything throughout the state. We need to know whether they increased more than anyplace else --- that's why we need to compare Lakeview to similar precincts with no busing campaign.

If there were no increase anywhere else, then it would make sense to focus just on Lakeview. Instead, there was a state-wide increase, so if Lakeview had an increase, we have to know whether this increase were any different from the increase anywhere else and whether it merits any explanation specific to Lakeview and not connected to the statewide increase.

If every single person at my company gets a 30% raise, and then I go home and claim that I got a raise because I was so talented, that would be a flagrant misrepresentation. It would be a lie. I would be taking credit for something individually that was general and had nothing to do with me individually. In this argument, we suspect that the folks at Lakeview's election board are practicing a similar sort of misrepresentation.

Does this make sense?
Mike :-)
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by Sankeerthana » Mon Jan 13, 2014 1:29 am
Hi Mike,

I understand now- the word "Following" is crucial here. Following the state-wide boom, the election board at Lakeview is making a certain claim, the validity of which we have to assess (in the context of the state-wide boom itself and not as an independent finding).

Thank you for clearing that up.

Sankeerthana
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