PrepTest 116

Incorrect. The Curator's issue with the interview subjects is that they all knew each other; any expertise they may have had isn't mentioned, and thus this answer is out of scope.

Incorrect. The Curator never discusses whether public opinion is likely to be evenly divided, though she does suggest that the interview subject choice was one—sided.

Incorrect. There's no discussion of anyone's opinion other than the three people interviewed, so there's no way to know if they fall into the exception noted—their opinions are widely held.

Incorrect. The magazine didn't imply that the friends must agree with each other—they did agree with each other, as highlighted by their interviews.

Correct. Argument or Facts:
Argument

Valid or Flawed:
Flawed

Question Type:
Strengthen (Principle)

Stimulus Summary:
C: A magazine wrote an article where 3 people expressed moral outrage at our art exhibit, but they were all friends, so the article was misleading.

Answer Anticipation:
Strengthen (Principle) questions ask us to find an answer that justifies a judgment in the conclusion based on the details in the premises. It's almost always best to start with that judgment and work backwards.

Here, the judgment is in the first line—the magazine story on the art exhibit was misleading." What was misleading about it? Well, it interviewed three people, all of whom were morally outraged at the exhibit, but they were all friends. How is this misleading? The magazine didn't mention that they were all friends.

The only way that this can be misleading is if them being friends is relevant to the conclusion of the article. And thus we need to find a principle that states that presenting such a set of opinions without this context of their friendship is misleading.

Unfortunately, each answer starts with, "It is misleading . . . , so we'll have to dig into the justification to see which one matches with the details presented about hiding the friendship of the interviewees.

Answer Explanation:
The magazine presented three interviews in an attempt to show the reaction of local residents to an art exhibit—so it was framed as representing public opinion. However, since the three interviewees were all friends, there's is a reason to believe that their views aren't representative—it wasn't a random sampling of people who agreed with each other, bolstering the representativeness of the view, but rather three people who are friends and thus more likely to have similar tastes/opinions/views. This answer justifies the Curator's suggestion that the magazine story was misleading.

Key Takeaway:
Strengthen (Principle) questions generally have answers that can be eliminated because they can't justify the conclusion/judgment in the stimulus. However, some harder ones will have 5 separate answers, each of which allows the conclusion to be justified based on a different set of facts. These come down to those facts/details—and so you should be very careful with your reading of them and the answer choices to find the one that matches the stimulus.