GMAT Verbal : Identifying Flaws of Sampling

Study concepts, example questions & explanations for GMAT Verbal

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Example Questions

Example Question #1 : Critical Reasoning

Many of the yachts anchored in Miami boast a luxurious hot tub on the top deck. Almost 80% of the yachts that were sold in the past fifteen years in Miami are older models, and none of them had built-in hot tubs.

The information above most strongly supports which of the following?

Possible Answers:

All yachts in Miami without hot tubs were sold in the past fifteen years.

People shopping for yachts will likely choose an older-model with a hot tub than an older-model without a hot tub.

Some newer yacht models were sold in the past fifteen years in Miami.

None of the newer yacht models with hot tubs will be sold in the next fifteen years.

Only new yacht models come with hot tubs.

Correct answer:

Some newer yacht models were sold in the past fifteen years in Miami.

Explanation:

The two pieces of evidence we are offered here do not allow us to make a strong enough conclusion to connect yachts to hot tubs. The first sentence tells us that an unspecified “many” of the yachts in Miami have a hot tub, but we do not know how many of these yachts are older models and how many are newer models. The second sentence tells us that  sold were older models: that would imply that  sold were newer models. Just because none of the older models that sold in the past fifteen years had built-in hot tubs does not necessarily mean people are avoiding buying older model yachts without hot tubs. There could be any number of explanations for this data. The only thing we can infer is that since only  were older models, at least some newer models were sold.

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