Self-study
Support The only vehicles that have high resale values are those that are well maintained. ████ ███ ███████████████ ███████ ███ █ ████ ██████ ██████
Method of Reasoning
The argument gives a conditional statement as premise (if a vehicle has high resale value, then it is well maintained) to conclude that the reverse is also true (if a vehicle is well maintained, then it has high resale value).
Identify and Describe Flaw
This is the cookie-cutter flaw of confusing sufficient and necessary conditions. In the conclusion, the author tries to treat the necessary condition from the premise (well maintained) as sufficient, but this is invalid logic.
6.
The flawed nature of the ████████ ███ ████ ███████████ ██ ████████████ ██ ██████ █████ ██ ████████ ██████████ ██ █████ █████ ████
a
since none of ███ ██████ ██ ████ ██████ ████ ████ ██████ ███████ ██ █████ ██ ████ ██████ █████ ███████
Wrong flaw. (A) is reasoning that because something hasn’t been done before, it isn’t currently needed. The premise doesn’t support the conclusion, but it isn’t confusing sufficient and necessary conditions like the stimulus does.
b
since the best █████████ ████ ███ ███████ █████ ████████ ███ █████ █████████ ████ ███ ████████ █████ ███████
Wrong flaw. (B) is concluding a proportional relationship between quality of mediator and track record based only on the track records of the best mediators (it’s possible that the worst mediators have a median track record, or anything else besides the shortest or longest track records), but (B) is not confusing sufficient and necessary conditions like the stimulus does.
c
since only those ███ ██████ ██ ██████ ██████████ ████████ ██████ ███████████ ████ ██████ ████ ██ ███ ████ █████████ ██████ ████████ ██ ███████████ ███ ████ ██████ ██ █████████
Wrong flaw. (C) takes something necessary for becoming an astronaut (desire) and then ranks it as the most important factor for becoming an astronaut. The stimulus, however, takes something necessary for X and then concludes that it’s also sufficient for X. The correct parallel flaw version of (C)’s conclusion would be “...that desire ensures that a person will become an astronaut.”
d
since all city ████████ ██████ ██████████ ██ ███████ █████ ██████ ███ ███████ ██████████ ██ ███████ ████ ██ █ ████ ███████
This is committing the same cookie-cutter flaw of confusing sufficient and necessary conditions as the author’s argument. In the conclusion, the author tries to treat the necessary condition from the premise (prefer waterfalls to traffic jams) as sufficient.
e
since one's need ███ ███████ ████ █████████ ██ █████ ██████ █████████ █ ██████ ███ ██ ██ ██ █████████ █████ ██ ██████ ███ ██ ████ ██ ███████ ████
Wrong flaw. (E) takes an inverse relationship (health goes up, medical need goes down) and then concludes that an extreme end of one factor (excellent health) means that the other factor (medical need) is zero. This is flawed because a person with excellent health can have medical need and this inverse relationship could still be honored, but it is a different flaw than the stimulus. In this stimulus, the author treats a condition necessary for X as also being sufficient for X.