Read the excerpt from Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner’s Freakonomics.Let’s now consider the following statistic, which represents the hundreds of matches in which a 7–7 wrestler faced an 8–6 wrestler on a tournament’s final day: 7–7 WRESTLER’S PREDICTED WIN PERCENTAGE AGAINST 8–6 OPPONENT: 48.77–7 WRESTLER’S ACTUAL WIN PERCENTAGE AGAINST 8–6 OPPONENT: 79.6So the 7–7 wrestler, based on past outcomes, was expected to win just less than half the time. This makes sense; their records in this tournament indicate that the 8–6 wrestler is slightly better. But in actuality, the wrestler on the bubble won almost eight out of ten matches against his 8–6 opponent. Wrestlers on the bubble also do astonishingly well against 9–5 opponents:7–7 WRESTLER’S PREDICTED WIN PERCENTAGE AGAINST 9–5 OPPONENT: 47.27–7 WRESTLER’S ACTUAL WIN PERCENTAGE AGAINST 9–5 OPPONENT: 73.4The authors use the statistics in this excerpt to
Answer
A
describe the complexity of sumo scorekeeping.
B
explain in detail the intricacies of sumo wrestling.
C
make a case for the idea that sumo wrestling is rigged.
D
show the similarities in Japanese sumo and American wrestling.
Explanation
The 7–7 wrestler was predicted to beat an 8–6 opponent only 48.7% of the time, but actually won 79.6% of those matches. The excerpt also shows a similar gap against 9–5 opponents: a predicted 47.2% win rate versus an actual 73.4%. These unexpectedly high win rates support the authors’ case that sumo wrestling is rigged, rather than explaining scorekeeping or comparing Japanese and American wrestling.
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