The odds of winning any major lottery jackpot are extremely slight. However, the very few people who do win major jac...

shunhe on January 1, 2020

Hi @Samir-Ghani,

Thanks for the question. This prompt asks us to determine an assumption on which the stimulus rests. Paraphrasing a bit, the first premise of the argument is that it's pretty unlikely for someone to win a major lottery jackpot. The second premise is that people who win those jackpots get lots of media attention. A third premise is that people are at least somewhat aware of events that get lots of media attention. Finally, the argument concludes that people greatly overestimate the odds of winning a major jackpot. For this argument to make sense, we need something that connects people's overestimations of their odds with the media attention and awareness that these events get. (D) is what gives us this. (D) tells us that if people become aware of jackpot winners, then some of those people will incorrectly estimate their own chances of winning. So then we can make a chain that looks like:

Media attention - > awareness - > incorrect estimations.

Let's assume the opposite of (D), which is that if people become aware, then none of them will incorrectly estimate their own chances. Clearly, this puts a huge hole in the argument, and so (D) is the assumption the argument requires. Hope this helps, and happy to go over why other answer choices are wrong if you want, or answer any other questions you might have.

hfatima1 on June 6, 2020

Hey Shunhe, I got this question correct. However, I do not understand the difference between D and E. They seem like very similar answer choices to me, can you please explain?