PT74.S1.Q22 - a study of 20,000

Comments

• inactive Alum Member

  September 2016 12637 karma

  Bump
• Toxoplasmosis Alum Member

  September 2016 233 karma

  C. Wrong - This AC is wrong because according to the stimulus we don't really know anything about the relationship between neighborhood and satisfaction with income, only about how an individual's position compared to their neighbors effects satisfaction (ie you are satisfied if you make about the same as your neighbors, regardless of if you live in the Hamptons or the projects)
  
  E. Correct - This basically sums up the stimulus. People care more about how their income stacks up against their neighbors than they care about the absolute value of their income. Therefore it follows that if everyone's incomes were to rise, people would not be more satisfied with their incomes because their position compared to their neighbors would ostensibly be the same.
• Tina Cho Free Trial Member

  September 2016 442 karma

  Thanks !
• meletzyosher Free Trial Member

  February 2018 66 karma

  I do not understand why E is correct. Although no other answer seems right in this question, E also seems to have a problem because the answer choice never said the increase was an absolute increase for every person in the neighborhood. Perhaps those making the lowest income got the biggest percentage increase and surpassed the income of the higher groups and those making the highest income got the smallest increase. Assuming there are more lower income people, now their income stacks favorably against the other groups.
  C does seem incorrect but I feel the word "neighborhood" can be spun easier than making E correct!
  Thanks for any input!
• pioneer321 Free Trial Member

  February 2018 328 karma

  @ralphrab said:
  I do not understand why E is correct. Although no other answer seems right in this question, E also seems to have a problem because the answer choice never said the increase was an absolute increase for every person in the neighborhood. Perhaps those making the lowest income got the biggest percentage increase and surpassed the income of the higher groups and those making the highest income got the smallest increase. Assuming there are more lower income people, now their income stacks favorably against the other groups.
  C does seem incorrect but I feel the word "neighborhood" can be spun easier than making E correct!
  Thanks for any input!

  C is wrong because if the income satisfaction was correlated to which neighborhood they live, then everyone within a given neighborhood would be expected to have the same level of satisfaction, despite differences in earnings. But according to the second portion of the stimulus, that is wrong.

  A, B, and D are garbage too. So now onto E...

  First of all, remember that this is Most Supported and not an MBT type question. So for many of the correct answers it will be possible to come up with potential flaws. E is definitely not a must be true thing, and you have definitely found a potential flaw, but I think we can agree that a given info supports the statement that if everyone's incomes go up, most people will not be more satisfied. There is an additional wording detail in this answer. I believe that when the answer choice says "greatly increase people's incomes," it means the majority of the people in the neighborhood. Now say you scenario happens and a small number of people get to see much larger income compared to others. Then their level of satisfaction will increase, but the level of satisfaction for the rest — majority of neighborhood's residents — will not increase similarly, so in effect your situation will still not produce a significant increase in happiness for neighborhood population as a whole.

  I hope this helps, but please let me know if some of it doesn't make sense, and you want me to clarify/expand on anything.
• meletzyosher Free Trial Member

  February 2018 66 karma

  Thanks for your response. Fair point about the word "people's". However, suppose 75% of the people of neighborhood "A" are making 50k and 25% of the populace is making 60k. If those same 75% increase to 80k and the 25% group increase to 65k, you now have a large group of people getting a large increase in relation to a quarter of the population. Their income is favorable amongst themselves and it is definitely favorable comparable to the 25% group. You can argue that income increases that are very favorable to only 25% of the population might not cause a great increase in the overall levels of satisfaction but consider if the groups were considerably more narrow. 51-49 for example. Also, you would be hard pressed to ever equate income increases with increases of overall levels of satisfaction. If a few people get increases, they won't affect the overall levels and if everyone gets increases they won't either affect the overall levels.
  I think I can see now why this answer is more flexible than C. But to say it's "not likely" is a bit extreme.
• pioneer321 Free Trial Member

  February 2018 328 karma

  @ralphrab said:
  Thanks for your response. Fair point about the word "people's". However, suppose 75% of the people of neighborhood "A" are making 50k and 25% of the populace is making 60k. If those same 75% increase to 80k and the 25% group increase to 65k, you now have a large group of people getting a large increase in relation to a quarter of the population. Their income is favorable amongst themselves and it is definitely favorable comparable to the 25% group.

  I somewhat disagree with your reasoning here. Where did you take a point of the 75% group's income being favorable among themselves? According to the stim, the only thing that matters is how one's income compares to the rest of the neighborhood. If you take your scenario, you again get 75% of the population making the same amount, which means that their relative levels of satisfaction will remain. Therefore nothing has effectively changed.

  But regardless, you've hit the nail on the head saying that the tcr wordings is extreme, and actually not completely provable based on the given info. But it is an supportable inference to which the given info points, and that is what we are typically looking for in MSS questions.