Self-paced
Morton: Conclusion In order to succeed in today’s society, one must have a college degree. ████████ ████ ████████ ████ █████ ███ ████ ██████ ███ █████ █████████ ███ █████████ ██████ ████ ██████ ███ ███ ███ ████████████ █████ ███████████ ████ ███████ ██ ████ █████████ ████████ ███████ ███████ █ ███████ ██████ █ ██████ ████ ███ ████ ██████ █████████ ██ ██ █████ ███████████
Argument Breakdown: Circular Reasoning
Morton concludes that a college degree is necessary for success, despite skeptics' objections. To support the argument, Morton rebuts the skeptics' counterexamples of successful people without degrees: that's not real success, because those people can't possibly be successful without degrees.
This is a great example of circular reasoning, because Morton's support is merely a restatement of the conclusion. A degree is necessary for success—why? Because a degree is necessary for success. The correct answer choice will either name this flaw as "circular reasoning," or else describe it another way.
20.
Morton’s argument is flawed because ██
a
assumes what it ████ ███ ██ ████████
(A) describes Morton's flaw of circular reasoning. Morton's conclusion, that a degree is necessary for success, is supported only by a restatement of that conclusion. The truth of the conclusion is assumed to be a fact, not proved by actual facts.
b
mistakes a correlation ███ █ █████
Morton isn't discussing causation in this argument. The question is whether a college degree is truly necessary for success, not whether one phenomenon caused another.
c
draws a highly ███████ ██████████ ████ ████████ █████ ██████████ █████
While Morton does draw a general conclusion, it's not from individual examples. Only the skeptics actually raise individual examples, and Morton dismisses all of these.
d
fails to consider ███ ██████ ██ ███████ ███████████████
Morton does consider the status of the skeptics' counterexamples, which we can see when Morton
e
bases its conclusion ██ ███ ███████████ ████ ████ ██████ ███████ ██ ████ ██████████
Morton never appeals to popular belief, and nor do the critics. What most people believe doesn't play any role in this argument.