#10 - Competitive figure skaters are judged by panels of up to nine judges,

[Administrator]

Please post your questions below!

[saiffshaikhh@gmail.com]

Please post your questions below!

can you explain the passage? I guessed the correct answer through process of elimination between the last two contenders (B and E).

[Adam Tyson]

I'll offer a short explanation that may lack some of the detail that we usually include in our more detailed official explanations, saiffshaikhh@gmail.com.

The stimulus describes two methods of judging two different things. In the process, they say the second thing is different from the first in that it takes an extra step to reduce bias. In the end, the author claims that the second way is fairer than the first way, and that the first group should do it the second way.

It doesn't matter what the details are, that one thing is about figure skating and the other is about diving. What matters is that abstract breakdown. "This thing tries to reduce bias, so it's fairer than that one that does not." What can we infer from that? That there is at least some possibility of bias in the first thing (since they aren't taking that extra step to reduce it). Without eliminating the high and low scores, bias has a greater chance of affecting the scores.

E is based on speculation. We have no basis for comparing the two activities. Maybe figure skating has an unusually high level of bias among the judges? Maybe diving judges are unusually fair-minded and incorruptible? We could say that without the removal of the high and low scores, judging of diving could be more biased than it currently is, but we couldn't say it would be worse than figure skating, or better, or the same.