Self-study
Research indicates that Conclusion college professors generally were raised in economically advantaged households. ███ ██ ███ ██████████ █████ ████████ ███████ ██████████ ████ ██ ██ ███████████ ████ ███████ █████████ ███████ ████ ████ ██████ ████ ███ ███████ █████████ ██████ ███ ███ ██████ ██ █ ██████
Objective: Identify a Flaw
The author concludes that in general, college professors come from economically advantaged households. As support, we see statistical data showing that college professors typically come from communities with an average household income higher than the national average.
Simplifying the argument a bit, the core idea is that (in general) college professors come from economically advantaged communities, therefore they come from economically advantaged households. Suddenly, it's clearer that this is a whole-to-part confusion, a type of cookie-cutter flaw. The author is making the baseless assumption that because the whole community is economically advantaged, so is the particular household where a college professor grew up. This ignores the fact that an overall advantaged community can still contain average or low-income households.
15.
The reasoning in the argument ██ ██████ ███████ ███ ████████
a
inappropriately assumes a ███████████ ███████ █████████ ██████ ███ ████████ █████████
While the author does treat household income as indicative of economic advantage, it isn't inappropriate to do so. In fact, it's totally reasonable to treat high household income as a form of economic advantage. (A) doesn't address the true flaw of whole-to-part confusion.
b
fails to note █████ ███ ████ ███████████ ████ ████ ███████ █████████ ███████ ██ █████ ██ ███████ ██████████ ████ ██
The existence of high-income communities that didn't produce college professors isn't relevant to the argument. The author is making a claim about the demographics of professors, not saying that economically-advantaged communities always produce professors.
c
presumes without justification ████ ███████ ██████████ █████████ ████ ██████ ██ ██████████ ████ ███████ ████ ███ ███████ ██ █████ ███████ ███ █████ ███████████
In other words, the author makes an unwarranted assumption that a characteristic of the whole community is also a characteristic of the individual household. With only knowledge of the communities' overall income, we can't say that professors' individual households were affluent, because they could have just been low-income households in high-income communities.
d
does not take ████ ███████ ███ ████ ████ ███████ ██████████ █████████ ████ █████ ████████ ████ █████ ████████████ ██ ███ ███████ ██████
The author's concern isn't with college professors' incomes as adults, but with the economic position of the households where they grew up. How much professors earn later in life isn't relevant.
e
fails to take ████ ███████ ███ ████ ████ ████ ███████ ██████████ ████ ██ █████ ████████████ █████ █████████ ████ ███ ███████ █████████ ███████
Like (D), this focuses on college professors' circumstances as adults, but the author is concerned with their situations growing up. Where professors live now has no bearing on where they grew up.