PT121.S4.Q15 > Question

SECTION 1 · lr

Question 1 Question 2 Question 3 Question 4 Question 5 Question 6 Question 7 Question 8 Question 9 Question 10 Question 11 Question 12 Question 13 Question 14 Question 15 Question 16 Question 17 Question 18 Question 19 Question 20 Question 21 Question 22 Question 23 Question 24 Question 25 Question 26

SECTION 2 · rc

PASSAGE 1

Question 1 Question 2 Question 3 Question 4 Question 5

PASSAGE 2

Question 6 Question 7 Question 8 Question 9 Question 10 Question 11 Question 12

PASSAGE 3

Question 13 Question 14 Question 15 Question 16 Question 17 Question 18 Question 19

PASSAGE 4

Question 20 Question 21 Question 22 Question 23 Question 24 Question 25 Question 26 Question 27

SECTION 3 · rc

PASSAGE 1

Question 1 Question 2 Question 3 Question 4 Question 5

PASSAGE 2

Question 6 Question 7 Question 8 Question 9 Question 10 Question 11 Question 12

PASSAGE 3

Question 13 Question 14 Question 15 Question 16 Question 17 Question 18 Question 19

PASSAGE 4

Question 20 Question 21 Question 22 Question 23 Question 24 Question 25 Question 26 Question 27

SECTION 4 · lr

The trustee concludes that the museum would have closed if not for the media coverage of the recent exhibit. He supports this by saying that low attendance at the exhibit would have led to bankruptcy and permanent closure, and the media coverage seems to have helped attract record attendance.

The trustee concludes that without media coverage, the museum would have gone bankrupt and closed, just because the coverage helped attract record attendance. He ignores the possibility that the exhibit might have had enough visitors to stay open even without the media coverage.

In other words, just because the media coverage helped draw record attendance doesn’t mean that the exhibit would have had low attendance— and thus closed— without it.

The only conditional relationship in the trustee’s argument is between “low attendance” and “going bankrupt and closing permanently.” We don’t have a necessary condition for the museum’s remaining open, nor does the trustee confuse such a condition with a sufficient condition.

The trustee claims that media coverage likely helped boost this exhibit's record attendance, but he doesn't assume that no other exhibit has ever gotten as much media coverage.

The trustee thinks that local media coverage contributed to the exhibit’s record-breaking attendance, but he doesn’t assume that most people who read articles about the exhibit also attended it. We don’t even know if the “local media” was in the form of articles at all.

The exhibit might have had enough visitors to stay open even without media coverage. Just because the media coverage likely helped draw record attendance doesn’t mean that the exhibit would have had low attendance— and thus closed— without it.

This is the cookie-cutter flaw of circular reasoning, where the author’s conclusion simply restates a premise. The trustee doesn’t make this mistake; his premises and conclusion are distinct.

PrepTest 121 - Section 4 - Question 15

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