Self-study
Several legislators claim that the public finds many current movies so violent as to be morally offensive. ████████ █████ ███████████ ████ ██████████████ ██████ ████████ ██ █ ██████ █████████ ██ █ █████ ████████ ██████ ████ ██ ███████ ██ ███████████ ███████ ████ ██████ ███ ██████ ████████ ███ ████ ██████████ █████ ███ ██████ █████ ███████ ██████████ █████ ███ ███████████ ███ ████████ ███████ ███ ███████████ ███ ███ ████ ███████ ██████ ████ ████ ███ ███████ ██████████
Summarize Argument: Counter-Position
The author concludes that the public generally does not find violent movies offensive, contrary to the claims of legislators. As support, he cites a survey of frequent moviegoers in which the majority of respondents did not find violent movies offensive.
Identify and Describe Flaw
The author draws a conclusion about public opinion based on an industry survey of frequent moviegoers. This is the cookie-cutter flaw of relying on an unrepresentative sample: he fails to consider that the views of frequent moviegoers might not be representative of the public as a whole.
12.
The reasoning in the argument ██ ██████ ██ ████ ███ ████████
a
attempts to undermine ███ ████████████ ███████████ ███████ ██ ██████████ █████ ████████
The author does address their argument: the problem is that his rebuttal is flawed, not that he didn’t make a rebuttal.
b
bases its conclusion ██ ██████████ █████████ ██████ ████ ██ ██ █████████ █████████ ██ █████ █████████████
The relevant criterion is subjective judgments (what the public thinks of violent movies), so this can’t be the flaw.
c
fails to consider ███ ███████████ ████ ███████ ██████ ████████ ███ ██████████ ██ ██████████ ████████
The argument in the stimulus is about what fraction of the public disapproves of violent movies. The actual consequences of the movies are irrelevant; what matters is what the public thinks.
d
generalizes from a ██████ ████ ██ ████████ ██ ██ ██████████████ ██ ██████ █████████
This is the cookie-cutter flaw of relying on an unrepresentative sample. The author commits this by citing a survey of frequent moviegoers as definitive evidence. They might differ from the public as a whole. So they can’t be used to draw a conclusion about the public in general.
e
presumes, without providing ██████████████ ████ ███ ██████ ████████ █████ █████ █████████ ██ █ ██████ ████████ ██ ██████
Whether the respondents had a random sample of movies is irrelevant: the argument is about what people in general think of violent movies. It doesn’t matter if their choice of movies is non-random. The problem is that the respondents themselves aren’t randomly sampled.