The trustees of the Avonbridge summer drama workshop have decided to offer scholarships to the top 10 percent of loca...

shunhe on July 23, 2020

Hi @jingjingxiao11111@gmail.com,

Thanks for the question! So in this stimulus we’re told that the trustees of this summer drama workshop are giving scholarships to the top 10% of local applicants and the top 10% of nonlocal applicants based on an audition. And why are they doing this? To make sure that only applicants with the most highly evaluated auditions get scholarships.

Now we’re asked for something that points out why the trustees’ plan might not be effective in achieving its goal. And this is something we can think up before looking at the answer choices. But let’s take a look at (D), which tells us that some of the applicants offered scholarships could have less highly evaluated auditions than some of the applicants who aren’t offered scholarships. Remember, the goal here is to make sure that only the best auditions get scholarships. But this plan might not do that! And the reason it might not is because it makes this seemingly random distinction between local and nonlocal. Let’s say that all the local kids suck and so even the best 10% of their auditions are 3/10 stars. And all the nonlocal kids are great and so even the worst of their auditions are 5/10 stars. Well, that means we’re picking the top 10% of the nonlocal kids and the top 10% of the local kids, which means we’re getting some of those 3/10 star kids, and leaving out some kids who would’ve done better but were ranked against another group. So the plan might not even make sure that the best auditions get the scholarships, and that’s the problem that (D) points out.

Hope this helps! Feel free to ask any other questions that you might have.