PT105.S4.Q13

PrepTest 105 - Section 4 - Question 13

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Television allows us to transmit images of ourselves that propagate into space. ███ ████████ ██ █████ █████████████ ████ ██ ███ ███████ ███ ██ ███ ███████████ ████ ████████ ████ ██ █████ ██████████████ ██ ███ ██ ██ █████ ███ ████ ███████████ ██ ████ ███ ██ ███████ ███ ████████ ██ ████████████████ ███████ ██ ████ ████████ ████ █████ ██ ██ ████████████████ ████████████ ██ ███ ██ ███ ███████████ ████ ████████

Summarize Argument

The author concludes that there is no extraterrestrial intelligence in any neighboring star systems. She supports this by saying that, as far as we know, none of our transmitted messages have been recognized, and we haven't received any extraterrestrial messages.

Identify and Describe Flaw

This is the cookie-cutter fallacy of assuming that, just because there’s no evidence for something, that thing isn’t true or doesn’t exist. The author assumes that there isn’t any extraterrestrial life in neighboring star systems based only on the fact that there isn’t any evidence of it.

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13.

The reasoning in the argument ██ ████████████ ███████ ███ ████████

a

fails to provide ██ ████████ ██████████ ██ ███ ████ ██████████

The author doesn’t need to provide definitions of any of her terms in order to support her argument.

0%
b

infers that there ██ ██ ████████████████ ████████████ ██ ███████████ ████ ███████ ████ ███ ████ ██ █████ ████ █████ ██

The author concludes that there is no extraterrestrial intelligence in neighboring star systems based only on the fact that there is no proof that there is. But just because there isn’t evidence for something doesn’t mean that the thing doesn’t exist.

98%
c

assigns too little ██████████ ██ ███ ███████████ ████ █████ ██ ████████████████ ████████████ ██████ ███ ███████████ ████ ███████

The author’s conclusion is only about extraterrestrial intelligence in our neighboring star systems. She doesn’t need to address the possibility of it beyond our neighboring star systems because that’s outside the scope of her argument.

1%
d

neglects to mention ████ ████ ███████████ ████ ████ ████████████ ████████ ████████ ███ ██████████ ██ ██████████

This may be true, but it doesn’t affect the author’s argument. She never claims that television images are the only messages that have been transmitted to nearby star systems. Even if other messages have also been sent, it’s still true that we haven’t received any messages back.

0%
e

overlooks the immense ███████████ ████ ████ ████ ███████ ███ ███████████

The author doesn’t overlook this probability. She concludes that nearby star systems are uninhabited.

1%

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