Self-study
Political commentators see recent policies of the government toward Country X as appeasement, pure and simple. ████ ████ ██ █████████████ █████████ ███ █████ ████ ████ ████ ██████ ████████ ████ ███ █████████ █████████████ ██████████ ██ ██████████ ████████ ██████ ███████ ██
Summarize Argument: Counter-Position
The author argues that the political commentators’ assessment is mistaken, because most people disagree with them.
Identify and Describe Flaw
This is the cookie-cutter “fact vs. belief” flaw, where the author incorrectly assumes that because a group of people believe something to be true, it must be a factual reality. In short, she claims, “Most people believe X. Therefore, X is true.”
9.
The reasoning in the argument ██ ████████████ ███████
a
the term "policies" ██ ████ ███████████ ██ ███ ████████
This is the cookie-cutter flaw of “equivocation,” where the author uses one term to mean multiple different things. But the other uses “policies” consistently, so (A) doesn’t describe the flaw in her argument.
b
the political commentators █████████ ██ ███ ███████ ███ ███ ██████████
The fact that the commentators are not identified does not change their assessment or affect the author’s argument. So (B) cannot be the flaw.
c
a claim is ████████ ██ ██ █████ ██████ ███████ █ ████████ ██ ██████ ███████ ██ ██ ██ █████
The commentators’ assessment is inferred to be false merely because “most people disagree” with it, or believe it to be false. But just because most people believe something, is not evidence that it is actually the case.
d
the claim that ███ █████████ ████████████ ███ ████████ ██ ████ █ ███████ ███ █ ██████████ ██ ███ ████████
This is the cookie-cutter flaw of “circular reasoning,” where the premise is simply a restatement of the conclusion. But the claim noted in (D) is only the conclusion. The author’s premise and conclusion are distinct in this argument, so she doesn’t make this mistake.
e
it is assumed ████ ████ ██ ████ ██ ███████ ████████████ ██ ████ ██ █ ███████ ██ █ █████
This is the cookie-cutter “part vs. whole” flaw. But this doesn’t apply to this argument at all. The author never assumes that what is true of one part of the country is also true of the country as a whole.