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I hate subjective questions
Posted: Mon Sep 27, 2010 7:56 pm
by 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...
Re: I hate subjective questions
Posted: Mon Sep 27, 2010 7:58 pm
by Sandro
isnt 30 the magic number? Or was I sleeping through that part in stats lol
Re: I hate subjective questions
Posted: Mon Sep 27, 2010 8:01 pm
by vstraight
Sandro777 wrote:isnt 30 the magic number? Or was I sleeping through that part in stats lol
I have no idea lol.
Re: I hate subjective questions
Posted: Mon Sep 27, 2010 8:17 pm
by Cromartie
Sandro777 wrote: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.
Re: I hate subjective questions
Posted: Tue Sep 28, 2010 12:07 pm
by 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