RaviChandra wrote:
For a television program about astrology, investigators went into the street and found twenty volunteers born under the sign of Gemini who were willing to be interviewed on the program and to take a personality test. The test confirmed the investigators' personal impressions that each of the volunteers was more sociable and extroverted than people are on average. This modest investigation thus supports the claim that one's astrological birth sign influence one's personality.
Which one of the following, if true, indicates the most serious flaw in the method used by the investigators?
(A) The personality test was not administrated or scored personally by the investigators.
(B) People born under astrological signs other than Gemini have been judged by astrologers to be much less sociable than those born under Gemini.
(C) The personal impressions the investigators first formed of other people have tended to be confirmed by the investigators' later experience of those people.
(D) There is not likely to be a greater proportion of people born under the sign of Gemini on the street than in the population as a whole.
(E) People who are not sociable and extroverted are not likely to agree to participate in such an investigation.
Source : Lsat
Conclusion: Your signs influences your personality.
Premise: Twenty volunteers on the street were Geminis and more sociable/extroverted than average
This argument is assuming that there isn't some other reason the people chosen were more sociable/extroverted than average.
---> Was the sample representative of Gemini population in general?
(A) We don't care who scored/administered it, as long as the results are valid.
(B) This is about the judgment of astrologers, which is irrelevant here. We're doing science!
(C) This would prove that the investigators are good judges of character, not that astrology had anything to do with character.
(D) This is irrelevant. The investigators purposely found 20 geminis. It doesn't matter how many of them there were out on the street. If astrology affects personality, they could be the ONLY 20 geminis on the street.
(E) CORRECT. This provides another reason why the sample of people might have been more gregarious than average
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