Self-study
Support Only a very small percentage of people from the service professions ever become board members of the 600 largest North American corporations. ████ █████ ████ ██████ ████ ███ ███████ ███████████ ███ ████████████████ ██ ███ ████ █████████ █████████ ██████████ ██ █████ ████████
Summarize Argument
The author concludes that people from the service professions are underrepresented in the most important corporate boardrooms in North America. She supports this by noting that only a small percentage of them become board members of the 600 largest corporations.
Identify and Describe Flaw
The author’s conclusion is about the amount of board members who are from service professions, while her premise is about the percentage of people from service professions who are board members.
She assumes that, because a small percentage of people from service professions are board members, it must be that a small percentage of board members are from service professions. But what if only 5% of people from service professions are board members, but 75% of board members are from service professions? Then people from the service professions would certainly not be underrepresented.
17.
Which one of the following ██████ ███ █ ████ █████████ ██ ███ █████████
a
Six hundred is ███ █████ █ ██████ ██ █████ ██ ████ ██ ████████ █ ██████████ █████ ███ ██████████████ ██ ██████ ████ ███ ███████ ████████████
The author’s argument isn’t flawed due to sample size. 600 is simply referring to the number of the largest corporations in North America, and the conclusion is about these same “most important” corporations. She isn’t using an unrepresentative sample to draw her conclusion.
b
The percentage of ██████ ████ ███ ███████ ███████████ ███ █████ ██ ███ ██████ ██ ███ ███ ███████ █████ ████████ ████████████ ███████ ██████ █████ ███ ██████████ ██ ███ ███████ ██ █████ ██████ ███ ███ ████ ███ ███████ ████████████
Just because a small percentage of people from service professions are board members, does not mean that a small percentage of board members are from service professions. The author mistakenly assumes that it does.
c
It is a ███████ ██ ████ ███ ███ ███████ █████ ████████ ████████████ ██ ██ ███████ ██ █████████ ██████████ ██████████
The author doesn't make this mistake because she isn’t talking about corporate boardrooms generally. She’s just talking about “the most important corporate boardrooms in North America.”
d
It is irrelevant ██ ███████ ████████████ ███████ ███ ███████ ████████████ ██ █████ ███████ █████ █████ ██ ████ ███████████ ███████ ██ ███████ ████ ███ ███████ ███████████ ██ ███ ██████ ██ ███ ███████ █████████████
How this impacts smaller corporations is irrelevant. The argument only addresses the largest corporations in North America.
e
The presence of ██████ ████ ███ ███████ ███████████ ██ █ █████████ █████ ████ ███ ███████████ █████ ████ ████ ███████████ ████ ██ ████ ████████ ███████████ ████ ██ ███ ████ ██ ███ █████
The author never addresses corporations’ levels of social responsibility or how board members from service professions might impact social responsibility. (E) is irrelevant.