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ISRO EC 2023 Q.85: solution and answer

ISRO 2023 · ECQ.85 · 1 mark · MCQ

Which of the following best completes the passage below? In a survey of job applicants, two-fifths admitted to being at least a little dishonest. However, the survey may underestimate the proportion of job applicants who are dishonest, because ______________.

  1. (A)

    some dishonest people taking the survey might have claimed on the survey to be honest

  2. (B)

    some generally honest people taking the survey might have claimed on the survey to be dishonest

  3. (C)

    some people who claimed on the survey to be at least a little dishonest may be very dishonest

  4. (D)

    some people who claimed on the survey to be dishonest may have been answering honestly

See the question in the paper
ISRO EC 2023 question 85Tap to open full size

Answer and solution

ANSWER

The passage is best completed by option (a): some dishonest people taking the survey might have claimed on the survey to be honest.

Official answer: ASource: ISRO's revised and final answer key of 16 February 2024

  1. The survey reports that two-fifths of applicants admitted to being at least a little dishonest. The blank must give a reason why the true proportion of dishonest applicants could be higher than this reported figure.

  2. For the true proportion to exceed the reported one, some dishonest applicants must have been left out of the 'admitted dishonesty' count. That happens only if they claimed on the survey to be honest.

  3. Option (a) says exactly this: dishonest respondents who claimed to be honest are missing from the dishonest count, so the survey undercounts.

  4. Option (b) says honest people claimed to be dishonest. That inflates the reported figure, so it supports an overestimate, not an underestimate.

  5. Option (c) says some who admitted being a little dishonest are in fact very dishonest. They are already counted in the 'at least a little dishonest' group, so the proportion is unchanged; only the degree differs.

  6. Option (d) says some people who claimed to be dishonest were answering honestly, so they were not dishonest. That also inflates the reported figure, so it supports an overestimate.

  7. Only option (a) explains an underestimate.

KEY IDEA

To show a survey underestimates a group, find the option that moves members of that group out of the reported count (here, dishonest people who reported being honest). Anything that adds people to the count, or only changes the degree of those already in it, cannot cause an underestimate.

WATCH OUT FOR

Picking (c) because 'very dishonest' sounds like more dishonesty. Those people are already counted among the 'at least a little dishonest', so the proportion does not change. Another slip is choosing (b) or (d), which push the figure up rather than down.

From the ISRO EC 2023 paper. Also Q.85 of the ISRO Scientist/Engineer Computer Science 2023 paper. Every question of this paper · The full paper (PDF, ISRO) · All 11 ISRO Reasoning questions, with notes

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