Self-study
Four randomly chosen market research companies each produced population estimates for three middle-sized cities; the estimates of each company were then compared with those of the other companies. ███ ██ ███ ██████ ███ ██████████ ██████ ████████████ ███ ███ ████ █████████ ██ ███████ ██████████ ███ ██ █████████ ██████████ ██ ████ █████ ██████ ██████ ████ ███████ ██ ████████ ████████ ███ ███ █████ █████ █████ ███ ███████ ████████ █████████ ██████ ███████ ████ ███████ ██ ████████
Synthesizing The Claims
Our approach to stimuli in MSS questions is to develop a big picture understanding of the subject matter, while bearing in mind that the answer could still come from seemingly unimportant details. Here's a low-res summary of the claims in this stimulus:
- Domain: Middle-sized cities
- 4 companies estimating the current and future populations of 3 cities
- 2 cities stable population; 1 city rapidly growing
- Companies' estimates for the stable cities were basically all the same, current and future
- Companies' estimates for the growing city varied wildly
If this were a reading comp passage, our low-res summary would capture something like "stable cities had different results than growing cities." That gives us some reason to anticipate an answer along those lines. Still, the answer really could come from anywhere, so you should feel comfortable relying on process of elimination as you move into the answers.
5.
The passage provides the most ███████ ███ █████ ███ ██ ███ ██████████
a
It is more █████████ ██ ████████ ███ ██████████ ██ ████████████ ██████ ████ ██ ███████ ███████
(A) is wrong because it distinguishes based on the size of a city rather than its growth rate. The stimulus gives us no information at all about smaller cities.
b
Population estimates for ███████ ███████ ██████ ███ ██ ████████ ██████ ██ ██ ██████ ███ ██████████
You should confidently eliminate (B) when it says estimates for rapidly growing cities – which vary wildly – are accurate enough to use in marketing. Big picture, the stimulus says estimates of rapidly growing cities are less reliable than estimates for stable cities. Pointing at the worse kind of estimate and calling it good is a vibes mismatch.
Separately, for (B) to be supported we'd ideally want our stimulus to establish some kind of standard or threshold for what makes data "good enough" to be useful for marketing. This stimulus lacks that.
c
The rate of ██████ ██ ██████████ ██ ███████ ███████ ██████ ████ ███ ██████████
If anything, the stimulus gives us reason to suspect (C) is false. These wildly-varying estimates for rapidly growing cities are caused by something – perhaps that something is their fluctuating (and therefore hard to predict) rate of population growth.
d
The market research █████████ ███ ██████ ██ ██ ███████ ████████ ██ ██████████ ███ ██████████ ██ ██████ ███████
(D)'s correctness really highlights the difference between MBT and MSS questions. Typically I'd point out "equally reliable" as super-strong (and therefore sus) wording – it means "no more and also no less." That inference for sure fails the MBT standard.
In this MSS question, though, (D) just serves to highlight a big picture takeaway from the stimulus: when it comes to estimating the population of cities with a stable population, the companies all generated basically the same results.
e
Estimates of a ████████ ██████ ██████████ ███ ██████ ██ ██ ████ ████████ ████ ███ █████████ ██ ████ ████████ ███████ ███████████
We have no basis in the stimulus from which to infer any differences between current and future estimates.
The only explicit comparison of current and future population estimates comes from the stimulus' discussion of stable cities, where estimates for both time periods were similar in that they varied little from company to company.