Self-paced
Candidate: Support In each election in the last ten years, the candidate who supported property tax reform received a significant majority of the votes in the northeastern part of my district. ██ ██ █████ ████ ██ ██ ████████ ███ █████ ████ ███ ███████████ ███████ ██ ██████ ███ ██ ███████ ████████ ███ ███████ ██████████ ██ █████ ██ ███████ ██████████ ██████ ██ ███ ████████████ ████ ██ ██ ████████ ███████ ██████████ ██████ ██████████ ███ █ ████ ██ ██ ██ ██ ██ ██ ██████ ██ ████████ ████████ ███ ███████
Summarize Argument: Phenomenon-Hypothesis
The author concludes that by going on record as favoring property tax reform, she can attract additional voters in the northeastern part of the district without alienating voters elsewhere. This is based on the fact that in each election over the past 10 years, the candidate who supported property tax reform received a majority of the votes in the northeastern part of the district. No other part of the district has a detectible voting pattern for or against property tax reform.
Identify and Describe Flaw
The author assumes that the correlation between gaining a majority of votes in the northeastern part of the district and supporting property tax reform is explained by a causal relationship between the support and the votes. But the support for property tax reform might have had nothing to do with why the candidate got votes.
15.
The reasoning in the candidate's ████████ ██ ████ ██████████ ██ █████████ ██ ███ ███████ ████ ███ █████████
a
would not attempt ██ █████ ████████ ███ ██████ ██ ███████
The conclusion concerns what the author believes will win votes. Whether a candidate would actually attempt to enact reform is not relevant, because the argument concerns the effects of supporting such reforms. One might be able to win votes simply from support.
b
draws opposite conclusions █████ ██████ ████████ ██ █████████ █████ ██ ███ ████████
There’s nothing flawed about drawing opposite conclusions if the evidence supports those differing conclusion. The evidence shows a discernible pattern in the northeast, but no discernible pattern elsewhere. So there’s nothing flawed about drawing different conclusions.
c
draws a general ██████████ █████ ████████ ██ ██████ █████ ██ █ █████ ██████
We have no reason to think the conclusion is based on a “small” sample. The sample includes the results of votes over elections in the past 10 years. This could be dozens of elections. We have no idea whether the sample is too small.
d
surmises from the ████ ████ ███ █████████ ███ ██████████ ████ ███ ██████ ███ █████
There’s a correlation between winning more votes in the northeast and supporting tax reform. The author assumes that the support for tax reform is what caused candidates to win more votes. This doesn’t have to be true. So we can’t conclude that supporting tax reform will attract additional voters.
e
draws a conclusion █████ ██████ ██ ████ ████ ███ ███ █████ ███
There’s nothing inherently flawed about drawing a conclusion from data that’s ten years old. In any case, the argument isn’t based “solely” on data that’s ten years old. The data concerns elections throughout the last 10 years.