I hate subjective questions Forum

[vstraight]

I was just doing Preptest C and one question in LR (question #9 section 3) struck me as kind of subjective.

Is 125 large corporations a reasonable sample to base a generalization about large corporations in general? I thought it wasn't but obviously I was wrong...

[Sandro]

isnt 30 the magic number? Or was I sleeping through that part in stats lol

[vstraight]

isnt 30 the magic number? Or was I sleeping through that part in stats lol

I have no idea lol.

[Cromartie]

isnt 30 the magic number? Or was I sleeping through that part in stats lol

You got it. 30 and up is generally considered a statistically significant sample size.

[KaplanLSATInstructor]

Actually, I don't think any knowledge of statistics is required here. The problem with (E) is that we don't KNOW whether that sample is unrepresentative. The data involves large corporations and the conclusion is about large corporations. For all we know, the large corporations selected for the poll are a perfect mix, providing an excellent sampling.

Of course, the sample COULD be unrepresentative, but that's not what (E) says. (E) suggests the sample IS unrepresentative, and thus we can't select that as a definite flaw.

On the other hand, (D) IS an assumption that the author makes, and is therefore the correct answer.

The subtlety here is about choosing an answer that we KNOW is a flaw rather than an answer that is merely a POSSIBLE flaw.

HTH

- Chris