Consumer advocate: Conclusion Last year's worldwide alarm about a computer "virus"—a surreptitiously introduced computer program that can destroy other programs and data—was a fraud. █████████ ███████ ████████ ██ ███████ █████████ ███████ ████ ███████ ██████ █████████ ███████ █████ ███ ███████████ ████ █ ███████████ █████ █████ ██ █████████ ██ █ ███████ █████ █████ ███ ████ █████ ████ █████ ████████ ████ █████ █ ████████ █████ ██ ██████ ████ ████████ ██████ ███ ██████ ██████████ ██ █████████ ████████ ████ █████ ██ ███ ██████████ ███████ ███ ███████ ████ ██ ██████ ██ █████████ ██████
The consumer advocate concludes that antivirus companies’ warning about a destructive computer virus was a “fraud.” Why? Because there weren’t many actual cases of damage from that virus, and yet the companies sold many antivirus programs. According to the advocate, this shows that the warning was just meant to increase sales.
The consumer advocate uses an imbalance between antivirus sales and cases of damage from a virus as evidence that antivirus companies were dishonest about the risk posed by the virus. This ignores the possible alternative explanation that the antivirus programs worked, and without all those sales, the virus would have caused much more damage.
The reasoning in the consumer ██████████ ████████ ██ ██████ ███████ ████ ████████
restates its conclusion ███████ ██████████ ██ █████ █ ██████ ██ ██████ ██
The argument does offer support for its conclusion: the claim that there were way more antivirus sales than actual cases of harm from this virus.
Answer choices which, rightly or wrongly, accuse the argument of circular reasoning.
fails to acknowledge ████ █████████ ████████ █████ ███████ ███████ ███████ █████ ████ ███ ██████████ ███ █████████
The argument doesn’t acknowledge this possibility, but that isn’t a flaw because the argument is specifically about the particular virus described. Whether the antivirus programs are effective against other viruses is just irrelevant.
asserts that the ██████████ ██ ███ █████ █████ ███████ █████ ████ ███ ███████ █████ ███ ███ █████ ██ ███ █████ ███
The advocate’s argument isn’t trying to establish the cause of a correlation. There also just aren’t any earlier and later events discussed.
Answer choices which, rightly or wrongly, accuse the argument of making a causal reasoning error.
uses inflammatory language ██ █ ██████████ ███ █████████ ███ ████████
The argument does provide evidence for its conclusion: the imbalance between antivirus sales and actual harm done by the virus.
overlooks the possibility ████ ███ ██████████ █████ █████ ███ ████ ████ ███ ████ ██████████ █████████ ███ █████ ████ ███████ ██████
The argument never addresses this possibility, and instead just assumes without any reason that the reason the virus didn’t do much harm is because it was never harmful. However, if the antivirus programs were effective, that really undermines the argument.
Weaken: Introduce or suggest an alternate explanation for the target phenomenon.
Strengthen: Helps to eliminate an alternate explanation for the target phenomenon.
Answer choices which, rightly or wrongly, accuse the argument of making a causal reasoning error.
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