A specific verbal question

[silkworm]

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***Note ****
Possible spoiler for those of your who haven't take Test 8 in EK 101 Verbal.











I just completed EK 101 Test 8 and have hit a puzzle:

Is the following two statement equivalent?

1) percentage of untrained people who believe in lies their told is 75%.

2) untrained people believe in 75% of lies they are told.



The EK101 answer explanation insist they are the same. But I feel somewhere in my brain a logic circuit is short-circuiting. They gotta be wrong, right?

 

[bigdreamer#1]

Say yeah, it's tricky...I think this may help if I understand it right.


1. This says of all untrained peoples, say for example, there are 100 of them, only 75% (75 people of the 100) of these untrained people will believe lies, presumably the remaining untrained 25% (25 of 100 untrained) will not by into lies at all.

2. Of all untrained people say 100 total exist, they (all 100 identified untrained peoples) believe, or are convinced of 75% of all the lies presented to them ( for example they are presented with 100 lies, all 100 people will believe 75 of those lies, they accept 75% as true and not lies.

 

[bigdan]

I think the above poster's logic is spot on, but I'm baffled at why EK would say the two statements are equal. Try examkrackers.com for their bulletin board; the authors will answer questions there.

dc

 

[liverotcod]

Tough to say without the passage context. The statements, taken by themselves, definitely do not say the same thing.

 

[blz]

***Note ****
Possible spoiler for those of your who haven't take Test 8 in EK 101 Verbal.











I just completed EK 101 Test 8 and have hit a puzzle:

Is the following two statement equivalent?

1) percentage of untrained people who believe in lies their told is 75%.

2) untrained people believe in 75% of lies they are told.



The EK101 answer explanation insist they are the same. But I feel somewhere in my brain a logic circuit is short-circuiting. They gotta be wrong, right?

lol when i started reading this thread and saw the **spoilers** label i thought accidently loaded up the gamefaqs.com msg boards..hahah

 

[CJMPre-Med]

Well, I'm new here, and although I'm still about a year away from the MCAT's and haven't begun to prepare, I'd like to think I'm intelligent enough to see that those two statements are in no way equivalent without contextual clarification. 😛 In other words, I'm with liverotcod. 🙂


In statement A, we are dealing with a percentage of people; in statement B, we are dealing with a percentage of lies believed. Thus, they are inherently saying two different things. The only way I could see to easily rectify this would be if it were assumed that each untrained person in a sample was to hear only a single statement (thus obviating the "75% of lies" conundrum) which could be interpreted as either a lie or the truth; thus, it is distilled down to a binary choice T or F. Now, if untrained persons are held as believing 75% of the lies they are told, then 75% of whatever size sample of untrained persons is queried would necessarily have to believe a false statement to be true (since True or False doesn't allow for percentages within a single person's answer), and thus will be counted under the set of those found in statement A (i.e., this results in 75% of untrained people believing the lies they are told, as expressed in statement A).


But this is just a hypothetical scenario which would serve to "prove" the two to be equivalent under stringent conditions ; under normal conditions, when standing alone, I do not believe them to be so, though I could be mistaken-- formal logic was never my forte. 😛 I also believe that the above rationale (if anyone can make sense of that mess 😀) also holds in converse, though it's much too late for me to consider it. 🙂 As far as the abstract logical concept of "equivalence" goes, however, you'd still only be instantiating a single instance with very specific conditions using my above reasoning, and so I don't believe that it would hold up under a broader interpretation (e.g., are these equivalent in general under all circumstances?) barring clarification.


I'd be interested in hearing if A) anyone understands what I'm saying above and feel it applies to this problem (because it was initially vexing for me as well), and B) the correct answer to the problem, along with the accompanying explanation from the text, from the original poster. 🙂


And yes, I think too much. 😀

 

[willthatsall]

I'd be interested in hearing if A) anyone understands what I'm saying above and feel it applies to this problem (because it was initially vexing for me as well), and B) the correct answer to the problem, along with the accompanying explanation from the text, from the original poster. 🙂


And yes, I think too much. 😀

Absolutely. That answer is definitely not correct as the OP posted it. The question actually reminds me of something you would be likely to see on the LSAT, not the MCAT.

 

[silkworm]

Whoa, CJM-Premed, that's a pretty nifty piece of mental gymnastics, though I honestly can't follow it. Have you ever thought of being a lawyer instead 🙂 ?

The actual passage is not nearly as byzantine. Here is the context:

In the passage: "Studies show people untrained in body language . . . . swallow 75% of lies without realizing it."

In the question (one of those I, II, III which are true type) :

I: percentage of untrained people who believe in nonverbal lies is 75%.

II: . . . ...

III: .......

The explanations says "I" is true and quoted the above passage as justification.

Now in the clear light of the day, I can see EK really did make a mistake. Thank you for all your posts, sorry for having wasted your times.

 

[CJMPre-Med]

Whoa, CJM-Premed, that's a pretty nifty piece of mental gymnastics, though I honestly can't follow it. Have you ever thought of being a lawyer instead 🙂 ?

Nah, I do quite nicely in my pre-med courses. 😉 But I suppose if all else fails... 😛

The actual passage is not nearly as byzantine. Here is the context:

In the passage: "Studies show people untrained in body language . . . . swallow 75% of lies without realizing it."

In the question (one of those I, II, III which are true type) :

I: percentage of untrained people who believe in nonverbal lies is 75%.

II: . . . ...

III: .......

The explanations says "I" is true and quoted the above passage as justification.

Now in the clear light of the day, I can see EK really did make a mistake. Thank you for all your posts, sorry for having wasted your times.

Ah, well that is a MUCH more easily solved problem than the one originally posted, as it's basically just a reading comprehension question. 🙂


Btw, you wouldn't happen to have the name "silkworm" on certain "other" forums, would you?

 

[CJMPre-Med]

Actually, I was just reading over the other posters' responses and noticed that bigdreamer1 alluded to my little scenario above with his explanation of statement B, where he said to assume a 100 person sample size and ALSO implicitly assume that only a single statement (lie/truth) was made to each. Again, however, these are concocted scenarios with arbitrary rules which were not laid out in the question, so neither of our explanations would "solve" this and make the two statements equivalent without the employment of "rules" like you and I have introduced. Taken on their own, they are in no way equivalent. 🙂


Figured I'd give credit where credit was due, bigdreamer1. 😛