PT83.S1.Q16 - Fremont: Simpson is not a viable candidate for chief

etrophie

Why is "E" not the correct answer?
-Galindo starts up off his response with a broad generalization of a phenomenon "an oil industry background is no guarantee of success", and then uses a single instance of said phenomenon to support his claim.

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Sami

You have definitely identified one of the method of reasoning that Galindo uses but it's not a flaw in this case. Galindo is correct to infer that because a single instance of said phenomena, having an oil industry background does not guarantee success.

For example: Lets say it was true that oil industry background guaranteed success. What would we expect based on this about the last executive who had the oil industry background? We would expect him to have been successful. But he was not; he actually took the company to the brink of bankruptcy. So Galindo is correct to infer from this evidence that just having a background in oil doesn't mean every time you are guaranteed success.

Another example to help would be:
Ostrich is a bird but it does not fly. Therefore its not true that just because a creature is a bird it is guaranteed it can fly.

Answer choice E would have been correct had the stimulus read:
The last oil exec did have a background in oil industry and he brought the company success. Therefore, having a background in oil industry guarantees success.

In this example above, it is a flaw to use one example and make a conclusion about what it means generally but in our original question its not a flaw.

I hope this helped see the difference when a particular way of reasoning is a flaw and when it's not.