#4 - Statistical records of crime rates probably often

[Administrator]

Complete Question Explanation

Method of Reasoning. The correct answer choice is (B)

The author argues that statistical records of crime rates are essentially biased, often reflecting the motives and methods of those who compile or cite them. This assertion is then supported by a series of observations about how politicians, the media, and the police engage in biased reporting in order to promote their respective agenda.

In answering this Method of Reasoning question, it is important to prephrase a general description of the argument: the author proceeds by inductive reasoning, citing several examples in support of a probabilistic conclusion. This prephrase agrees with answer choice (B), which is correct.

Answer choice (A): The author only evaluates evidence in support of her conclusion. No counterexamples are discussed.

Answer choice (B): This is the correct answer choice. The author cites several examples (the police, newspapers, etc.) to support her conclusion that statistical records of crime rates often reflect the motives of those who compile or cite them.

Answer choice (C): This answer can be immediately eliminated, because the argument’s conclusion is not a statistical generalization. Furthermore, the premises do not involve a large number of specific instances.

Answer choice (D): While reporting bias is clearly a problem for which the author provides several examples, no general solution is proposed. The conclusion only states that a problem exists, not that it can be solved in any particular way.

Answer choice (E): The examples provided do not “apparently contradict” the author’s conclusion: they support that conclusion directly. The author makes no attempt to resolve an internal contradiction.

[lday4]

I see why B is the correct choice and even a better choice than C, but can you explain what makes C incorrect? It seems like it generally could be true. The conclusion in the stimulus could be a considered a generalization and the examples it gives could be implications of that generalization.

Thanks!

[Emily Haney-Caron]

Hello!

Great question. Seeing "generalization" in C makes it a tempting answer to a lot of students. The key here is to make sure you've identified what part of the stimulus is the conclusion (the first sentence). If you see the first sentence as the generalization in C, the rest of the sentences would have to be providing implications of that first sentence, which would mean that we're deciding those other sentences have to be true because the first sentence is true. That would make the first sentence a generalization, functioning as a sort of premise to support the conclusions that follow. It sort of reverses the argument given in the stimulus.

Does that help?

[lday4]

Oh interesting, yep that really helps to think about it that way!

[mgardella]

How in the world are the "examples"- that police "may underreport" or that politicians "may magnify"-- examples? They are unfounded, and completely speculative.
Furthermore, the language in the first sentence "crime rates probably often reflect crime rates" indicates a generalization to me. The whole stimulus sounds like someone out on a limb, with practically no real support to back up their claim. Is this not a generalization?

[Rachael Wilkenfeld]

Hi mgardella,

I can tell from your question that you really don't like answer choice (B) here. I don't know if it will make you feel better or worse, but that's a common response to a correct answer in Method of Reasoning questions. Method questions are infamous for writing answer choices that sound terrible but are actually correct.

Let's think about what a good Method answer should do. It should ACCURATELY describe the argument. It doesn't have to be the best description. It doesn't have to be the most complete description. But it does have to be accurate.

So turning to the stimulus, the argument begins with the conclusion: Statistical crime records probably show more about the motives and methods of those who compile or cite them than anything objective about crime itself. That's not a strongly phrased conclusion. The argument supports the conclusion by listing several times that sources may be biased, followed by a final example where the phrasing is stronger ("newspapers....often sensationalize...").

If I were to prephrase this, I'd say the argument gives examples meant to show a general pattern of the conclusion. Unfortunately, that's not exactly what we have. We have answer choice (B) that states the argument proceeds by citing examples in support of the conclusion. Can we find the examples? Well, sure. The newspaper is an example. The police and politicians are also examples. They all support the conclusion. Are they great support for that conclusion? It's not airtight. The conclusion itself is pretty weakly stated, and answer choice (B) is accurate in it's description of what occurs in the argument.

Answer choice (C) on the other hand, is a great example of a half-right, half-wrong answer. I agree that the first sentence seems like a generalization. But the second half of that answer choice is all wrong. We don't move from the generalization to implications from the generalization. We give examples that support the generalization. Answer choice (C) describes a situation where the generalization is the premise, not the conclusion. That doesn't match what we have in the stimulus. We also don't have any implications from the generalization, so the second half of that answer choice is not accurate. What would an implication look like? It would look a lot like a conclusion. "Therefore you can't rely on statistics." We simply don't see anything that resembles that structure in our stimulus.

I also notice that you are really concerned about the words "may" and "might" in the examples. This doesn't make them not examples---it just weakens how persuasive we might find them. When we are looking at a Method of Reasoning question, we don't really care about how we can strengthen or weaken it. Or even how strong/weak it is to begin with. We just need to describe it.

Hope that helps!
Rachael