#9 - People are usually interested in, and often even moved

[quan-tang@hotmail.com]

I would had chosen B if the stem does not say 'they rarely even pay attention to statistical information, much less change their beliefs in response to it' which makes very clearly that the statastical information plays little role in their opinion regarless they believe in anecdote or not.

S wthether or not they know anecdotes are unrepresentatitve, their major understanding of society must ultimately came from anecdotes. So B is irrelevant.

So 'Statistical information is made more comprehensible when illustrated by anecdotes.' D actually explained how they can have accurate understanding based on anecdotes.

[Paul Popa]

Hi Tang,

(D) is actually not as helpful as it might first appear. Even if it's true that anecdotes make statistical information more comprehensible, the stimulus tells us that people rarely pay attention to statistical information or change their beliefs in response to it, so whether the statistical information is assisted by illustrated anecdotes or not, it's still not influencing people's beliefs.

(B), however, tells us something that helps resolve the paradox in some way: people know that anecdotes are unrepresentative, so we can conclude that they aren't using anecdotes to shape their beliefs about society as a whole. Perhaps they are using something else, like their personal experiences or intuition. Hope this helps!