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. ████ ██ ██ ███████ ███ ██████████ ████████ ██ ████ ███████████ ███ ███████████ ████ ███ ███████ █████████████ ██ █████ ████ ████ ████ ███ ████ ████ ██ ████████ ███ ███████████ ████ ██ ███ ██████████ ███ ████ ██ ████████████ ██ ███████████ ██ ████████ ██ █ █████ ████████████████████ ███ ██████████ ██ █ ████ █████████
████████ ███ ████ ███ ███ ███████ █████ ██ ████ ███ ██████████ ████ ███ ██████ ████ ███████ ██ ███ █████ ██████ ███████ ███ ██████████ ███████████ ██████████ ███ ██████ ██████████ █████████ ██ ███████████ ███████ ██████ ████ ████ ███ ██ ████████ ████ ████████████ ████████
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.
—
Conclusion: Journalists stake their reputation on the logic of anecdotes.
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.
The student’s response contains which ███ ██ ███ █████████ █████████ ██████
confusing a marginal ████████████ ████████ ████ ███ ███████ ████ ████ ██ ███████████
Neither the teacher nor the student gives any indication of whether writing stories with anonymous sources is a common or rare practice among journalists. For (A) to be right, you must be able to point out the marginal journalistic practice, then point to the place where the student thinks that practice is actually the primary thing journalists do.
ignoring the possibility ████ ███ ███████ ███████ ██ █ ████████████ ███ ███ ███████████ ██ ██ ████████████ █████████ ████ ███ █████████ ████ ████████ ████ ████
This captures the necessity vs. sufficiency flaw using “there could be other stuff too” language.
The teacher gave a list of three conditions, and said meeting one of those conditions is necessary for a story to get published. The student took that to mean stories that meet those conditions are guaranteed to get published, ignoring the possibility that there may be other necessary conditions aside from those the teacher mentioned.
Like, you know, not being made up.
confusing the characteristics ██ ████████ ██████████ ████ ███ ███████████████ ██ ███ ██████████ ██ █████ ███ ██████████ ████ ████
(C)
judging the merits ██ ███ ███████████ ████████ ██████ ██ ███ ████ ███████ ████ ██ █████ ███ ████████ ███████
The teacher’s position doesn’t apply to invented stories. The student thinks it applies, but only because they’ve misunderstood the teacher’s position, interpreting necessary factors as sufficient factors.
falsely concluding that ██ █████ █████████ ███ ████████ ██████ ██ ████████ ████ ████ ██████████ ███ █████████████ ████ ███████ ████ ███████
(E) translated: just because meeting all three factors suffices, that doesn’t mean meeting just one of those factors suffices.
(E) itself mischaracterizes the teacher’s position. The teacher doesn’t say meeting all three factors suffices – they say meeting one of those factors is necessary.
Answer five questions and we'll estimate your score.
It takes about five minutes.
Take the free diagnostic