PT6.S2.Q22 - The trustees of the Avonbridge summer drama...

sssmmmaaa

Why is B not the correct answer? How can D be justified?

tahurrrrr

This is basically a strangely worded flaw question. This academy claims that by giving the scholarship to the top 10% of local applicants and the top 10% of nonlocal applicants to ensure that only the most high scoring applicants get the scholarship. But this is a variation on the percentage vs. actual number flaw. Just because the top 10% in each sub category get the scholarship, doesn't mean they are necessarily the highest scorers.

Example: Let's say there are 100 local applicants and 100 non local applicants
top 10% of local applicants: 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100
next 5% of local applicants : 99 99 99 99 99
top 10% of non local applicants: 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60

Above is a situation where the scholarship receivers are not the highest scorers. This is the flaw that option D points out.

(hold on. I'm on the wrong device and have to look at the question again to tell you why B is wrong. haha)

tahurrrrr

B is wrong because the goal of this system is to award the scholarship to the highest scoring applicants. B is basically saying that the audition process is subjective and unfair, which is often the case in reality anyway haha

but as far as the question, it doesn't matter if the process was unfair. They'll still end up awarding the scholarship to the highest scorers.

Hope that makes sense!

tahurrrrr

If you were to change the wording into a standard flaw question, hear are the pieces of the argument:

Premise- We awarded scholarships to the top 10% of local applicants and the top 10% of nonlocal applicants.

Conclusion- We awarded the scholarship only to the highest scoring applicants

Flaw- percentage vs. real number: Top 10% in 2 subgroups doesn't necessarily mean top 20% all together.

Answer choice D is the only one that addresses this flaw.

leoxnardx

I think the number method mentioned above is one way, but I'm terrible with numbers so here is my answer to why D is better than B. I chose B under time, and now I kinda see why not.

B states that the evaluation system disadvantages some, leading to unfairness. Well, guess what, we are literally doing that kind of evaluation. The logical God in China who knows zero English will get consistently 120/180 in LSAT, but does that mean he is not good at logical reasoning? No. This is quite similar to the situation B is objecting to, and we probably all object to this kind of situation. But is that the main concern of those trying to find out who to give the scholarship to? Not at all.

The audition may well be designed to be the most biased audition ever, but the goal here is not how to object to the audition. The goal is why the audition wouldn't produce the result of "only the applicants with the most highly evaluated audition will receive the scholarship." B addresses a potential flaw of the audition: it might not be accurate; we don't know how would that affect the goal of giving the scholarship to only the 10% highest evaluated auditions. The lesson is to focus on what the question is actually asking us to do and not to bring our own worldly knowledge into it.

D address that problem. It states that it is possible for some students who have lower evaluation results to get the scholarship while the students who have higher evaluation are left without scholarship. When I was doing it, I eliminated it thinking no way that can happen. But who cares how this can happen? If D is true, there is no way that only the highest evaluated students receive the scholarship since some underachievers are somehow getting it. This situation is the one that would undermine the effectiveness of the evaluation set by the trustees, fitting the main point of the question.

Note to myself: make sure to abandon real-life assumptions and expectations; stick to the question