Self-study
Though ice cream is an excellent source of calcium, Support dairy farmers report that during the past ten years there has been a sharp decline in ice cream sales. ███ ██████ ███ ████ ███████ █████ ██ ███████ ██████ ████ ██████ ████████ ██████████ ████ ███ ████ ██████ ████ ██ ████████ ██ ████████ █████ ██████ ██ ███████ ██ ██████ ███████ ██████ ██████ ████ ███ ██████
Summarize Argument: Phenomenon-Hypothesis
The author hypothesizes that more people are choosing to increase their calcium intake by eating cheddar cheese rather than ice cream. He supports this by pointing out that ice cream sales have sharply declined over the past ten years, while cheddar cheese sales have nearly doubled.
Identify and Describe Flaw
This is the cookie-cutter flaw of assuming that correlation proves causation. The author shows a correlation between a rise in cheese sales and a drop in ice cream sales, and then concludes that people turning to cheddar cheese for calcium is what caused these changes. But there could be other explanations for why people are buying less ice cream or why they’re buying more cheddar cheese.
8.
The reasoning above is most ██████████ ██ █████████ ██ ███ ███████ ████ ██
a
fails to produce ███████████ ████████ ██████████ ███ █████ ████████ ██████
The author doesn’t give statistical evidence for the dairy farmers’ claims, but he doesn’t need to. So (A) doesn’t describe a flaw in his argument.
b
fails to consider ███████████ ████████████ ██ ███ ███████ ██ █████ ██ ███ █████
The author concludes that people turning to cheddar cheese for calcium caused the decline in ice cream sales, without considering any alternative explanations for this decline.
c
relies solely on ███ █████████ ██ ███████████ ███ ███ ██████ ██ ██ ██████
The author doesn’t rely solely on the testimony of anyone. He relies partially on reports from dairy farmers, but we have no reason to believe that these farmers are likely to be biased.
d
presumes, without providing ██████████████ ████ ███ █████ ██ █ ██████ ██████ ██ ███████ ████ ██ ███████ ██████
The author never makes this assumption. He says that ice cream is an excellent source of calcium, but he doesn’t assume that it’s a better source than cheddar cheese.
e
presumes, without providing ██████████████ ████ ██████ ███ ███ ███████ ██████ █████ ███ ███ █████
The author never makes this assumption. He concludes that more people are choosing to increase their calcium intake through cheddar cheese, but he doesn’t assume that no cheese eaters ever eat ice cream.