SAT Question 07456405: Answer & Explanation

While researching a topic, a student has taken the following notes:

• Malapportionment is the over- or underrepresentation (relative to population size) of electoral districts in a governing body.
• It is a common feature of representative governments.
• There are 169 seats in Norway’s supreme legislature (the Storting).
• Seats are distributed by a formula that awards 1 point per resident and 1.8 points per unit of land.
• Less populated rural districts with large tracts of land receive a disproportionate number of seats compared to smaller but more populated urban districts.

Difficulty:Hard

The student wants to refute a claim that malapportionment in the Storting favors small urban districts. Which choice most effectively uses relevant information from the notes to accomplish this goal?

Less populated rural districts are disproportionally underrepresented in the Storting, creating an unfair advantage for smaller but more populated urban districts.

It’s untrue that malapportionment in the 169-seat Storting favors small urban districts; rather, the formula for distributing seats overrepresents more populated districts.

A common feature of representative governments, malapportionment occurs when electoral districts are over- or underrepresented.

Awarding more points per unit of land than points per resident, the formula for distributing Storting seats overrepresents less populated rural districts with large tracts of land.

SAT Question 07456405: Rhetorical Synthesis answer and explanation

Explanation

Why the other choices are wrong