Logical reasoning PrepTest 110 · Section 3 · Question 4

Incorrect. Over 50% is a majority and almost 9/10 is large enough to be considered an overwhelming majority. This isn't a presumption—it's just the definition of the words.

Incorrect. The conclusion does have two parts to it, but they don't conflict. The first part is about what students want to do, and the second is what must be true if they don't do it.

Incorrect. The argument discusses what would be true "if" the dropout rate is high so it considers this possibility.

Incorrect. That's not a contradiction—students may end up dropping out despite not wanting to.

Correct. Argument or Facts:
Argument

Valid or Flawed:
Flawed

Question Type:
Errors in Reasoning

Stimulus Summary:
Study — Of 1000 randomly selected students from a medium—sized city 89% planned to graduate
Conclusion — Most students want to graduate high school and a higher national dropout rate isn't due to a lack of desire

Answer Anticipation:
There are two elements in this argument that suggest specific flaws.

First the argument is based on a study and so we need to consider both a sampling flaw and a correlation/causation flaw. For the latter the conclusion isn't causal (in fact it rules out a cause) so we should not think of that. For the sampling flaw it was large and random but it was done on students from a medium—sized city. If that group isn't representative of the nation as a whole (which is the group discussed in the conclusion) then we can pick an Unrepresentative Sample answer.

Second the argument brings up a percentage. However the conclusion is also about a percentage ("overwhelming majority" being well over 50%) and thus there's not a jump to an amount so there's no Percent vs. Amount flaw.

Since the only flaw we found was a Sampling Flaw let's look for that in the answer choices.

Answer Explanation:
The sample is from high schools in a medium—sized city. They may not be representative of all students whether they be from large— or small—sized cities suburbs rural areas etc . . . This answer highlights the Sampling Flaw in the stimulus so this is the correct answer.

Key Takeaway:
When a study specifies the subset from which a sample is drawn there will likely be a Sampling Flaw unless it specifically notes that this subset is representative of the whole the conclusion is limited to just that subset or the conclusion is that there is some correlation between two things (which can be established with a skewed sample).