Self-paced
Support Downtown Petropolis boasted over 100 large buildings 5 years ago. █████ █████ ██ ██ █████ █████████ ████ ████ ███████████ █████ ███ ██████ ██ █████ █████████ ██ █ ████████ ██ ██ █████████ ██ ███ ████████ ██████ ██ ████ █████████ ██ ██ █████ ████ ████████ ██████████ ██ ██ █ ███████ █████ ██ ████████ ████████
Summary
Downtown Petropolis is in economic decline. The author points to two facts as support: 1) 60 of their large buildings built 5 years ago have been demolished, 2) the number of their large buildings is an indicator of their economic health.
Notable Assumptions
There are a few assumptions present.
1) We’re talking about the buildings that have disappeared from a set that was built 5 years ago, but we don’t know how many large buildings have been built in those 5 years, or how many were built prior to those 100 that are still standing. It could be that downtown Petropolis currently has 500,000 large buildings.
2) The support says that the number of large buildings is an indicator of economic health, but it is an assumption to say that more large buildings means better health. Maybe fewer large buildings is an indicator of better health.
24.
Which one of the following ██ ██ ██████████ ████████ ██ ███ █████████
a
The demolitions that ████ █████ █████ ██████ ███ ████ █ █████ ████ ████ ██████ ██████ ████ ████ ███████
It doesn’t matter if the demolitions are evenly spread or not. the argument is about total number of large buildings, not the distribution of them.
b
There have never ████ █████████████ ████ ████ ███ █████ █████████ ██ ████████ ███████████
If negated, this does nothing to the argument. Whether there was a singular year where they had 300 buildings, or they’ve always had 600+ buildings, it doesn’t harm the argument.
c
Most of the █████████ ██████████ ██████ ███ ████ █ █████ ████ ████ ████ ███████ ████ ████ ████████████ ████████
We don’t need to know the reason behind the demolition. Irrelevant.
d
The large buildings ██████████ ████ ███ ████ █ █████ ████ ████ ████████ ████ █████ █████████ █████ ██ ███ ████ ██████
It isn’t necessary that the large buildings have been replaced by smaller ones. We don’t know anything about small buildings in terms of indicating economic health.
e
Significantly fewer than ██ ███ █████ █████████ ████ ████ █████ ██ ████████ ██████████ ██████ ███ ████ █ ██████
This must be true. Like we identified in our analysis, the argument is assuming that there have not been enough large buildings built prior to or during those 5 years to make up for the ones that were demolished.