Self-paced
Teacher: Conclusion Journalists who conceal the identity of the sources they quote stake their professional reputations on what may be called the logic of anecdotes. ████ ██ ██ ███████ ███ ██████████ ████████ ██ ████ ███████████ ███ ███████████ ████ ███ ███████ █████████████ ██ █████ ████ ████ ████ ███ ████ ████ ██ ████████ ███ ███████████ ████ ██ ███ ██████████ ███ ████ ██ ████████████ ██ ███████████ ██ ████████ ██ █ █████ ████████████████████ ███ ██████████ ██ █ ████ █████████
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The Teacher
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Publish Or Perish
The central gap in the teacher's argument is a link assumption between the idea that journalists might have their stories rejected and the idea that they're staking their reputation on those stories. Here's the argument ultra-distilled:
Premises: The logic of anecdotes drives whether stories will be accepted.
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Conclusion: Journalists stake their reputation on the logic of anecdotes.
The Student
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Journalism Has Other Requirements, Bro
Here are the stimulus’ core claims distilled:
Teacher’s Claim: Getting published requires at least one of three things – plausibility, originality, or interest.
Student’s Premise: Invented stories can easily achieve any of those three things.
________
Student’s Conclusion: Stories don’t need to be real [to be published].
We can see the flaw in the student’s reasoning through two lenses. First, the student confuses necessity for sufficiency: just because fulfilling one of those three factors is necessary for a story to get published doesn’t mean fulfilling those factors suffices to get a story published.
Alternatively (and this is the lens our correct answer uses), the student treats the named factors as the only factors: just because we’ve laid out a few necessary factors doesn’t mean there aren’t other necessary factors as well.
18.
Which one of the following, ██ █████ ████ ███████████ ███ ███████████ █████████
a
A journalist undermines ███ ██ ███ ███ ████████████ ████████ ██ ██████████ ███ ███████████ ██████████ █████ ███ █████ ██████████ ██ █ █████ ███████ ███ ████████ ███ █████ ████████████ ███████████ ██ █████
This addresses the link assumption between stories being accepted/rejected and journalists staking their reputation on those stories. "Undermines his or her own professional standing" in (A) refers to "stake their professional reputation" in the stimulus, so (A) essentially says:
When journalists have their confidential-source stories rejected for anecdotey reasons, their professional reputation is damaged.
b
Statements that are ██████████ ██ █ █████ ██████████ ██████ ████ ██ ███ ████████ ██ ████████ ██████████ ████████ ██ ███████████ ██ ███████ █████████ ███ ████████████
The teacher's conclusion is narrowly about what happens when journalists submit stories with confidential sources. To that narrow point, the question of how often that scenario comes up is irrelevant.
c
Reported statements that ███ ██████ ████████ ████ █████ ████ ███████████ ██████ █████████ ██ █ ██████████ ███ ██ █████ ███ ██████ ████████ █████
(C) would be relevant to a conclusion that journalists rely on their professional reputations when submitting stories with confidential information. But the teacher's conclusion goes the other way around – we don't need reasons why the publication process depends on reputation, we need reasons why reputation depends on the publication process.
d
Reputable journalists sometimes ██ ███ ███████ ███ ████████ ██ █████ ███████ ████ █████ ██████████ ███ ██████ ████ ███ ████████ ██ █████ ███████ ██ █████████ ████ ███ ███████
This doesn't interact at all with the teacher's logic, which treats concealing sources (from publishers or the public) as a single concept that doesn't need further differentiation.
e
Journalists who have ███████ ██████ ██ ███████ █████ ████████ ████ ████ ███████ ███ ███████ ██████ ██ █████ ███████████
To "stake" your reputation on something is to risk losing it. (E) bolsters the idea that journalists who conceal their sources might enhance their professional reputation, but it doesn't reflect the possible downsides that would be needed to support the claim that journalists are betting (a "stake synonym") their reputation on the logic of anecdotes.