A recent poll revealed that most students at our university prefer that the university, which is searching for a new ...

SamA on March 2, 2020

Hello @amf,

We want to explain why the students, most of whom prefer extensive experience, would select a candidate with no experience as a university president.

This is the paradox we need to resolve. For this question type, I find it helpful to make a prediction. I'm trying to think of why the students would choose this candidate. Maybe they did not have the option of someone with experience, so they had to give up their preference. Maybe the only candidate with experience had other negative traits.

Let's discuss C. The poll did not include all of the candidates that the school is considering. This does not mean that none of the candidates in the poll had experience. The students still could have passed over a candidate with experience, so our paradox remains.

D is a much better option. I wasn't able to predict it, but it explains why the students would have chosen this candidate: they were not given information about the candidates' experience. How can the students act according to their preference when they don't have the information to do so? They were not able to respond to the poll based on experience, so our paradox is solved.