PT18.S4.Q18

PrepTest 18 - Section 4 - Question 18

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Support Professor Hartley’s new book on moral philosophy contains numerous passages that can be found verbatim in an earlier published work by Hartley’s colleague, Professor Lawrence. ██████████ ██ ████ ██ ███ ████ ████ █████ ████████ ████ ████████████ ██ ███████████ █████ ███████ ███ ████ █████████ ██ ███ █████████████ ███ ████████████ ████ ████ ██ █████████

Argument Summary

The author points out that Professor Hartley's book on moral philosophy contains numerous passages that are identical to passages found in a book published earlier by Professor Lawrence. Since Hartley left these passages unattributed, the author concludes that Hartley has been dishonest in not acknowledging his debt to Lawrence.

Analysis: Necessary Assumption

The point of the argument is that Hartley plagiarized these passages from Lawrence. But if in some way Hartley, and not Lawrence, was actually the originator of these ideas — e.g., if Lawrence took these passages from Hartley's lectures or an earlier, unpublished manuscript by Hartley — then Hartley might not be guilty of plagiarism. So the author's argument assumes such a situation is not the case: there is no situation where Lawrence plagiarized from Hartley, instead of Hartley plagiarizing from Lawrence.

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18.

Which one of the following ██ ██ ██████████ ██ █████ ███ ████████ ██ ██████

a

Hartley could not ████ ███████ ███ ███ ████ ███████ ███ ████████ ██ █████████
Irrelevant. Whether Hartley could have written the book without these passages or not doesn't change the fact that he did, and doesn't tell us whether he plagiarized these passages or not.
2%
b

While writing the ███ █████ ███████ ███ ██████ ██ ███ ██████████ ██ ████████████ █████
This is one of those trap answer choices where one word makes all the difference. If (B) stated that "while writing the new book, Hartley had access to some version of Lawrence's book," then we would be much closer to necessary assumption territory, because it seems likely that to plagiarize passages "verbatim," Hartley would need to have access to Lawrence's book. But there is no reason Hartley needed to have access specifically to the manuscript — i.e., the unpublished version — of Lawrence's book. So (B) isn't a necessary assumption.
13%
c

A book on █████ ██████████ ██████ ███████ ████ ████████ ████████████ ███ ██████████ ███ ████████████
Incorrect. (C) just tells us a necessary condition for the type of material that should be included in a book on moral philosophy. It doesn't tell us anything about whether Hartley was dishonest or not.
5%
d

Lawrence did not ███ ███ █████ ██ ███ ████████ ██ ████████ ██ ███ ███ ███ █████ ████████████ ██████████ ████ ████████
Correct. If Lawrence did get the ideas or the formulations of these passages from Hartley, that would suggest the plagiarism went the other way (if Lawrence also left the passages unacknowledged). So if (D) were negated, the author's argument would fall apart. (D) is a necessary assumption.
80%
e

Hartley considered the ████████ ██ ████████ ██ ██ ███ ████ ████████ ███████████ ██ ███ █████ ████ ████████
Irrelevant. Whether or not Hartley considered these passages to be the best possible expressions of the ideas they contain doesn't affect whether he was dishonest in leaving them unattributed.
0%

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