Self-paced
Jane: Conclusion Professor Harper’s ideas for modifying the design of guitars are of no value because Support there is no general agreement among musicians as to what a guitar should sound like and, consequently, no widely accepted basis for evaluating the merits of a guitar’s sound.
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Stimulus Summary
Jane claims Professor Harper's ideas about modifying the design of guitars "are of no value." She supports this claim by pointing out that musicians don't agree on how a guitar should sound, and so there is no "widely accepted basis" for evaluating a guitar's sound.
Mark adds on to Jane's case, suggesting that if Harper's ideas "really resulted in superior sound," they would have been adopted by now. He appeals to the Torres design, which was universally adopted within ten years because it improved the tonal quality of guitars.
Analysis: Method of Reasoning
We have a very unusual relationship between these two arguments. Notice that Mark doesn't disagree with Jane: if anything, he is trying to add support to Jane's conclusion, by providing another premise. In his view, it's even clearer that Professor Harper's ideas are "of no value" because they haven't been adopted, even though there has been plenty of time for them to be adopted if, like the Torres design, they really produced "superior sound."
It's important to notice, though, that the example Mark appeals to actually contradicts Jane's premise. Remember that Jane is arguing that there's no good basis to evaluate the merits of a guitar's sound. Mark, meanwhile, says that the Torres design was "almost universally adopted" because it improves the sound of guitars. So while Mark apparently intends to add an independent reason to support Jane's argument, it's important to see that the evidence Mark provides clashes with the evidence Jane provides.
21.
Which one of the following ████ ██████████ █████████ ███ ████████████ ███████ ████████ ████████ ███ ████████ █████████
a
Mark’s argument shows ███ █ ████████ ██ ████████ ████████ ███ ██ █████████
Incorrect. Mark provides a different reason to believe Jane's conclusion, a reason that actually conflicts with the reason Jane provides. But Mark doesn't suggest a way to "fix" a particular weakness of Jane's argument.
b
Mark’s argument has █ ███████ ██ ██████ ████ ████████ █████████
Incorrect. Mark and Jane share a conclusion: that Professor Harper's ideas are "of no value." But their arguments don't share premises. They each provide a separate premise to support that conclusion, and in fact, their premises conflict with each other.
c
Mark and Jane ███ ███████ ██████████ ██ █████ ███ █████████ ████████████
Incorrect. We know Mark doesn't intend to disagree with Jane's argument: he sees himself as adding on to Jane's argument. (Notice how he starts his argument with "What's more...") So their arguments actually share a conclusion, that Professor Harper's ideas are of no value, but use different premises with different assumptions to get there.
d
Mark’s argument restates ████████ ████████ ██ █████ ██████
Incorrect. (D) is tempting because Mark and Jane agree on Jane's main conclusion: that Professor Harper's ideas are of no value. But this doesn't mean that Mark's argument is just a "restatement" of Jane's argument.
Mark provides a different premise to support that conclusion, and even if that premise were not in conflict with Jane's premise (as it actually is), the fact that Mark provides a different reason to believe the conclusion is enough to disqualify (D). Mark would have to be giving the same premise as Jane, just using different words, for (D) to be correct.
e
Mark’s argument and ████████ ████████ ███ █████ ██ ███████████ █████████████
Correct. While Mark apparently sees himself as agreeing with Jane on the value of Professor Harper's ideas, Mark appeals to a past example of a design that improved the sound of guitars and was widely adopted as a result. When Mark agrees that Professor Harper's ideas have no value, in other words, Mark means that they do not lead to an objective improvement in the sound of guitars — but he assumes such improvements are possible.
Meanwhile, Jane's whole argument against the value of Harper's ideas is based on the premise that there is no basis for talking about objective "improvements" to the sound of guitars. So while Mark doesn't explicitly disagree with Jane, their arguments are based on very different assumptions about the possibility of improving the sound of guitars.