This is a Principle question.
We are to extract from this argument by analogy the underlying principle. The right answer states the principle, and the argument in the stimulus is an application of that principle.
The argument contains a premise about SUV drivers and a conclusion about cancer and smoking. It’s an argument by analogy. In order for the reasoning by analogy to run through, both the premise and conclusion have to conform to some underlying principle. Otherwise, what happens with drivers and SUVs would have little bearing on cures for cancer and behaviors like smoking.
The premise says that drivers of SUVs have the correct belief that because they're in an SUV, they're better protected. They have lower risk of serious injury. As a result, their behavior changes. Because they know they’re safer, they start to drive more recklessly. They know the negative consequences are not as bad, so they start to take on more risk.
The conclusion says that the discovery of powerful cures for certain high-incidence forms of cancer would probably trigger an increase in behaviors such as smoking and overexposure to sun that are known to increase the risk of such cancers. If we have a cure for lung cancer, then more people would smoke more. If we have a cure for skin cancer, then more people would overexpose themselves to UV light.
Is this analogous to what was described in the premise? Yes, because there is an underlying principle at work here: mitigating or eliminating the negative consequences of an action invites increased participation in that action. Another way to state that is if the risk of harm is decreased, then people will engage more in that form of risky behavior. This unifying principle is what ties together these two totally different situations. It’s how this argument’s reasoning by analogy runs through.
Answer Choice (A) says when people believe that there are several measures they could take to reduce the risk associated with a certain activity, generally they will only take the measure that they believe will most reduce that risk. That’s not the principle at work here.
For the argument to conform to this principle, we’d have to show several measures to reduce the risk associated with driving and then have the driver pick the most effective one. So maybe one measure is to get into an SUV. A second measure is to put on your seatbelt. A third measure is to have airbags. The fourth measure is don't run red lights. According to (A), the principle here is that you assign some probability to each measure and then pick the measure that will most reduce the risk associated with driving.
Correct Answer Choice (B) says the development of ways to protect people from the consequences of behavior that would normally harm them often makes people less careful to avoid such behaviors.
Yes, that’s the principle. “Behaviors that would normally harm them.” What kind of behavior are we talking about here? If applied to driving, then we’re talking about reckless driving. That's behavior that normally would harm you. “The development of ways to protect you from the consequences of reckless driving” is putting you in an SUV. Because when you're in an SUV, it lowers the risk of serious injury as a result of accidents. And as a result, you are less careful to avoid reckless driving.
It’s the same in the conclusion. The behavior that normally would harm people is, say, smoking. If we develop ways to protect people from the consequences of smoking, i.e., lung cancer, then that's going to make people smoke more.
(B) is correct because it extracts the underlying principle that analogizes these two seemingly different situations.
Answer Choice (C) says that people generally take special care to avoid behaviors that they believe would likely lead to serious harm and generally do not take special care to avoid behaviors that they believe will not harm them at all. That’s not the principle at work here.
What behaviors would likely lead to serious harm that people are avoiding? Reckless driving? But if that's the behavior, there's no indication that people are taking special care to avoid reckless driving. What behaviors won't cause harm? The argument doesn’t say. (C) has a hard time mapping onto the argument.
We could make up an argument for (C) to map onto. In general, when traffic lights turn red, everybody stops. When the lights turn green, everybody goes.
This maps onto (C). People are taking special care to avoid behaviors (running a red light) that they believe will likely lead to serious injury. People are not taking special care to avoid behavior that they believe will not harm them (running a green light). In other words, people run green lights.
Answer Choice (D) says people generally exercise more care when performing activities that they know to have risky consequences than when performing activities of unknown risk. That’s not the principle at work here.
To illustrate the principle in (D), consider two activities. Activity one you know is risky. Activity two has a risk profile that’s unknown to you. It could be just as risky, less risky, or more risky than activity one. (D) is saying that people are more careful when performing activity one. This doesn’t map onto the argument.
Moreover, I'm not sure this is a reasonable attitude. If you don't even know the risk profile associated with an activity, wouldn't it be prudent to be extra careful just in case?
Answer Choice (E) says avoiding serious harm to themselves is given a high priority by people in their behavior but avoiding lesser harm is frequently outweighed by various desires. That’s not the principle at work here.
To illustrate the principle in (E), consider the serious harm of losing your arm. You’re going to be very careful to avoid that kind of harm. Now consider the less serious harm of getting a bruise. People regularly choose to risk getting bruised because they have other desires that are more important to them. For example, if you go hiking, you might get bruised. If you play basketball, you might get bruised. The desire to go hiking or play basketball often outweighs the lesser harm of getting a bruise.
If applied to driving, then avoiding serious harm is given a high priority by people in their behavior. That’s why people don’t run red lights. But avoiding less harm is frequently outweighed by various other desires like wanting to get to a destination faster. That’s why people speed. Speeding is not as serious as running a red light, but it does increase your chances of getting hurt (and hurting others).
This is a Flaw/Descriptive Weakening question.
The argument takes on a form that we’ve seen plenty before. It says that the Swahili civilization built a particular kind of tomb. Such tombs were widespread among the Oromo civilization and unknown among any other civilization that the Swahili had contacted. From these premises, the argument draws the conclusion that the Swahili were influenced by the Oromo.
Okay, that’s a bold assertion on thin evidence. All we know is that the Oromo also built these tombs. That doesn’t mean that the Swahili imitated the Oromo. It’s certainly possible. But it’s also possible that the Oromo imitated the Swahili. That’s an alternative hypothesis. To discriminate between them, we need more information. Maybe there’s some evidence consistent with one hypothesis but inconsistent with the other. Maybe there’s information about chronology. Who built these tombs first? That’d be a clue about who’s the influencer and who’s the imitator.
Answer Choice (A) says that the argument fails to adequately address the possibility that the Oromo used these structures as something other than tombs. That’s true. But that’s not where the argument is weak. Even if we stipulate that the Oromo used these structures as tombs, the argument still suffers from its causal weaknesses.
Answer Choice (B) says that the argument concludes that the first event caused the second event simply because the first event occurred earlier. If only! Information about the Oromo being first to build these tombs would be really helpful in establishing the conclusion that the Swahili learned from the Oromo. There is no such information so (B) is descriptively inaccurate.
Answer Choice (C) says that the argument draws a restricted conclusion from premises that provide strong support for a much broader conclusion. Uh, come again? (C) thinks this argument could have drawn a broader conclusion? And that the main weakness of the reasoning is that the actual conclusion didn’t go far enough? That’s crazy. The argument has a hard enough time supporting its existing conclusion. It won’t be helped if we swap that conclusion out for an even heavier, more expansive conclusion. I think (C) is picking up on the “to some extent” qualifier in the conclusion. Like, (C) is saying that’s what makes the argument vulnerable, that it should have just come out with a more forceful conclusion. But that misses the point. Toggling the strength of the causal arrow up or down is irrelevant. The problem with this argument is that the causal hypothesis in the conclusion is merely one of many.
Answer Choice (D) says that the argument assumes there was no third civilization responsible for creating the first tombs of the kind found in both the Oromo and Swahili cultures. This is a very attractive trap. It describes a cookie-cutter flaw that we’ve seen so many times in other Flaw questions. The problem is that the argument doesn’t make this assumption. The premises already established that the Swahili had no contact with any other civilization that built such tombs. That precludes the hypothesis that a third civilization was the true creators of these tombs and they were the OG influencers. That couldn’t have happened because the Swahili had no contact with any other civilization that built these tombs except the Oromo. Since this third culture hypothesis is already precluded, the argument doesn’t have to assume anything about whether they first created these tombs. It wouldn’t matter either way. Imagine if it were true that some third culture created the tombs. So what? They’re halfway across the continent and the Swahili didn’t have any contact with them. So if the Swahili learned it from anyone, it would still have to be from the Oromo. (D) is descriptively inaccurate. The argument makes no such assumption because the argument doesn’t have to. The alternative hypothesis that (D) is concerned with was already precluded by the premises.
Correct Answer Choice (E) says that the argument assumes that the Oromo built their tombs earlier than the Swahili did. Yes, that’s definitely an assumption that the argument makes. In order for the Oromo to have influenced the Swahili, the Oromo had to have done it first. If the Swahili got there first, then perhaps it’s the Oromo who were influenced by the Swahili. (E) is descriptively accurate. More than that, (E) is why the argument is weak. There is no information about who got there first. Without that information, we cannot say whether the Oromo as influencer hypothesis or the Swahili as influencer hypothesis is more likely to be true. This is precisely where the argument is most vulnerable to criticism.
This is a Flaw/Descriptive Weakening question.
The stimulus starts with other people’s (Smith’s) position (OPP). Smith proposed a new city ordinance prohibiting the use of a sleazy sales tactic. The author then insults Smith’s memory—okay. Then she says that four years ago, Smith owned a business that used the very same sleazy sales tactic. She concludes that Smith’s proposal does not merit consideration.
This is a terrible argument and one that we’ve seen many times before. It’s a source attack. If we want to oppose the ordinance, we should provide premises in support of that position. Attacking the source of the ordinance has no logical effect. It might be rhetorically effective, but that turns on how reasonable the audience is.
In general, source attacks fail. Just imagine how easily Smith can counter the author here. He just has to say something like, “Yeah, no shit. That’s how I know it’s a sleazy sales tactic and that’s why I’m proposing we ban it. I don’t have amnesia but you might have low-level brain damage.”
Correct Answer Choice (A) says the argument dismisses the ordinance because of its source rather than because of its content. This is exactly right.
Answer Choice (B) says the argument takes a single fact that is incompatible with a claim as enough to show that claim to be false. There are at least two issues with (B). First is simply that it’s descriptively inaccurate. The single fact (Smith’s business that used the sleazy sales tactic) is not incompatible with the claim (ban the sleazy sales tactic). That fact may actually be the reason for the claim. Second, even if (B) were descriptively accurate, what (B) describes isn’t inherently a flaw. Whether a single incompatible fact is enough to show a claim to be false depends on what the claim is. If the claim is that all cats are cute, you just have to show me one ugly-ass cat and that claim is dead.
Answer Choice (C) says the argument fails to make a needed distinction between deceptive and legitimate sales tactics. This is almost descriptively accurate. The argument did not make this distinction. But it also did not need to. The reason why the premise doesn’t support the conclusion has nothing to do with failing to define what a legitimate sales tactic looks like.
Answer Choice (D) says the argument draws a conclusion that simply restates a claim presented in support of that conclusion. This is a charge of circular reasoning, of begging the question. This is descriptively inaccurate. The premise is that Smith did something wrong. The conclusion is we should ignore Smith’s proposal to ban that wrong action in the future. These are two very different claims. The argument isn’t circular. Here’s a circular argument: Smith’s proposed city ordinance to prohibit the use of bait-and-switch sales tactics is ill-conceived. Clearly, it is utterly flawed.
Answer Choice (E) says the argument generalizes from a limited number of instances of a certain kind to all instances of that kind. This is an overgeneralization flaw. It’s descriptively inaccurate. Here’s an argument that commits that flaw: Smith’s appliance store uses sleazy sales tactics. Therefore, all of Smith’s businesses use sleazy sales tactics.
This is a Flaw/Descriptive Weakening question.
The stimulus starts with distinguishing categories of celestial objects. Stars versus planets. Stars generate light. Planets do not generate light, they only reflect it. Next, the argument defines a domain: this galaxy. It says that under this domain (in this galaxy), there are celestial objects that are neither stars nor planets, but it doesn’t give them names. (Fortunately, we already know their names: moons, asteroids, black holes, etc.) The argument then concludes that these nameless objects (i.e., these celestial objects that are neither planets nor stars) generate light.
Wait, what? The premises don’t support the conclusion at all! The premises establish that planets don’t generate light. It also establishes that there are other non-star, non-planet, nameless objects. But it says nothing about whether those nameless objects generate light. Where did that even come from?
As it turns out, Correct Answer Choice (E) reveals that the argument made the oldest mistake in the book: sufficiency-necessity. But this was such an unforced and bizarre error that it very successfully obscured itself. I certainly didn’t see this coming because I never would have expected the argument to confuse “planets don’t generate light (p→/gl)” with “only planets don’t generate light (/gl→p).” Had the premises established that “only planets don’t generate light” and there are non-star and non-planet objects, then those nameless objects would generate light. But the argument in fact only established that “planets don’t generate light.” It failed to consider the possibility that planets are not the only celestial objects that don’t generate light. For example, moons and asteroids also don’t generate light.
Answer Choice (A) says the argument failed to consider the possibility that this galaxy contains no celestial objects that reflect light other than planets. This is such an irrelevant consideration that I guess the argument failed to consider it. But that’s not why the argument’s reasoning is flawed. The conclusion is claiming that the nameless objects generate light. (A) is concerned with whether these nameless objects reflect light. Who cares if they reflect light or not?
Answer Choice (B) says the argument failed to consider the possibility that celestial objects in this galaxy comprise only a minute percentage of all the celestial objects in the universe. Similar to (A), this is such an irrelevant consideration that I guess the argument failed to consider it. But that’s not why the argument’s reasoning is flawed. The argument already established its domain: this galaxy. The conclusion does not exceed the bounds of that domain.
Answer Choice (C) says the argument failed to consider the possibility that celestial objects in this galaxy are not the only celestial objects that generate light. Similar to (A) and (B), this is such an irrelevant consideration that I guess the argument failed to consider it. But that’s not why the argument’s reasoning is flawed. (B) claims that there may be celestial objects in other galaxies that generate light. Okay, but who cares? The argument already established its domain: this galaxy. The conclusion does not exceed the bounds of that domain.
Answer Choice (D) says the argument failed to consider the possibility that there are numerous features that distinguish stars from planets besides the ability to generate light. Similar to (A), (B), and (C), this is such an irrelevant consideration that I guess the argument failed to consider it. But that’s not why the argument’s reasoning is flawed. It doesn’t matter what other features distinguish planets from stars. Stars tend to be bigger. Stars tend to live longer. Great. Who cares?
This is a Flaw/Descriptive Weakening question.
This is a causal argument with phenomenon-premises and a hypothesis-conclusion. The first premise reveals that for physical therapy patients that received less than six weeks of treatment, around a third showed major improvement. This result was the same regardless of whether the treatment was by a generalist or specialist. The second premise reveals a similar phenomenon for longer treatment. This time, around half showed major improvement. Again, the result was the same regardless of whether the treatment was by a generalist or specialist.
So those are all the facts we have. That’s collectively the “phenomenon.” What causal conclusion can be drawn? Well, not much. Certainly not the conclusion actually drawn: the choice between a generalist and specialist makes no difference.
Let’s say you wanted to test this hypothesis. You think that the choice between a generalist and specialist makes no difference. How would you go about designing your (ideal) experiment? I put “ideal” in parentheses because it really doesn’t have to be ideal. It just has to be better than the data in the stimulus and that’s a low bar. So, you’d collect a ton of people prescribed less than six weeks of physical therapy. Then you’d randomly assign them to specialists and generalists. Then you wait out the six weeks and you measure to see what percentage in each group experienced major improvement. If it turns out that about a third experienced major improvement in either group, then that’s good evidence that the choice between generalist and specialist has no causal power. (And then you do it all over again for the long-term treatment.) But notice how different that is from what actually happened in the stimulus. The stimulus presented observational data, not experimental data. That means there were no controls. Specifically, there were no controls for self-selection. The assignment to generalist or specialist was not random. People chose whether to see a generalist or a specialist and presumably with good reason! What reason? Maybe because generalists and specialists are better suited to treat different kinds of injuries.
This is exactly what Correct Answer Choice (E) points out. This argument is vulnerable because it overlooked the possibility that generalists and specialists each excel at treating a different type of injury. (E) is subtle in exposing the flawed logic of the argument. I’m pretty blunt so let me shine a spotlight on this error with the following argument.
Records reveal that of patients who received heart surgery, about 75% regained full cardiovascular functions one month post operation regardless of whether they received a double bypass or a quadruple bypass surgery. Therefore the choice of a double or quadruple bypass will not affect one’s chances of regaining full cardiovascular function.
Is the flaw glaring now? Imagine telling the patient who’s scheduled for a quadruple bypass that actually, you know what, you don’t need four unclogged arteries, let’s just clear up two of them and you’ll be fine.
Answer Choice (D) is very attractive. It claims that the reasoning is vulnerable because the argument failed to indicate whether the number of patients surveyed who saw a generalist was equivalent to the number who saw a specialist. While (D) is descriptively accurate, the argument’s failure to indicate isn’t where the argument is weak. To see this, imagine if we supplied an additional premise that fixed this “problem” by indicating what (D) wants. So the same argument, but now an additional premise indicates that the numbers were equal. Voila, the conclusion follows! Just kidding. The argument is still garbage for all the reasons discussed above.
If (D) was attractive to you, perhaps you thought that experiments require equal group sizes? First, note that (D) isn’t talking about an experiment (because the stimulus isn’t an experiment). Second, it’s not true that equal sizes are a requirement for experiments. It’s nice to have (for statistical reasons) but it’s not necessary. I think you can intuitively understand this just by imagining an experiment where one group was slightly larger than the other, say 60/40. Your results will still be fine as long as you avoid the other experimental pitfalls (random assignment, blinding, etc.).
Answer Choice (A) is also attractive though for a different reason. (A) is attractive mainly because it’s gibberish but fancy-sounding gibberish. It claims that the argument is vulnerable because it assumes (without warrant) that if the effectiveness of different practitioners in bringing about any (which includes minor) improvement does not differ, then their effectiveness in bringing about major improvement cannot differ. What? No, the argument makes no such assumption. The argument does not assume there is no difference in how effective generalists and specialists are with respect to bringing about minor improvements.
Answer Choice (B) claims that the argument provides no information about the kinds of injuries that require short-term versus long-term treatment. Okay, this is descriptively accurate but nobody cares because this isn’t why the argument is weak. I think (B) could have been right had the argument been edited just a little. Like this: Records reveal that regardless of whether patients receive short-term (six weeks) or long-term treatment, about 50% experience major improvements within six weeks. Therefore, the choice between short- or long-term will not affect one’s chances of major improvement. This argument is weak because it assumed that the assignment was random whereas it almost certainly was not. It almost certainly was the case that there was self-selection determining who got short-term and who got long-term. And that’s because doctors diagnose and prescribe proportional treatment. One way to describe this weakness is to say that the argument should have provided information about the kinds of injuries that require short-term as opposed to long-term treatment. That information would have most likely revealed that it’s the more severe injuries that require long-term treatment.
Answer Choice (C) claims that the argument overlooks the possibility that patients are more strongly biased to report favorably on one of the two types of medical professionals than on the other. (C) thinks the weakness in the argument has to do with whether the “one third” and “one half” major improvement results are believable. This kind of objection, the “wait, but are you sure your data maps onto reality?” is more powerful in arguments that rely on survey results. It’s not clear this is such an argument. The premises say, “records reveal.” What kind of records? How was the data collected? Did we ask the patients if they showed major improvement? Or did we simply measure their physical abilities to determine major improvement? If the latter, then (C) completely misses the mark for it assumes the data came from subjective reports. If we patch this issue up, then (C) at best identifies a minor issue in the argument. While it’s true that the argument does assume that these records reflect reality, the argument also failed to account for self-selection. That second issue is the major one because if that were fixed, the argument would improve dramatically whereas if we fixed the “records reflect reality” issue, the argument would still be flawed.
This is a Parallel Flawed question.
The argument opens with premises that Devan has never been kind nor offered help nor companionship to me. These omissions are taken to amount to a failure to meet the basic requirements of friendship. Okay, so we can conclude that Devan is not the author’s friend.
But the author takes it a step further to conclude that Devan is his enemy.
What kind of flaw is this? False dichotomy. The author assumes that one can only be a friend or an enemy and not both. But the true dichotomy is friend or not friend. And not friend isn’t equivalent to enemy. Not friend is a super-set that contains enemy but it also contains acquaintances, colleagues, strangers, etc.
Answer Choice (A) begins by laying out necessary conditions for being an officer of this club. There are three disjunctive necessary conditions. One must either be a member of two years standing, or a committee member, or have special qualifications. Evelyn fails two of the three conditions. She has been a member for only one year and she is not a committee member. Okay, but does she also fail the third condition? Does she have special qualifications? The argument is silent. It assumes she doesn’t and on that assumption draws the conclusion that Evelyn cannot be an officer. This is poor reasoning but it’s not the same poor reasoning in the stimulus. There’s no false dichotomy.
Answer Choice (B) begins by laying out necessary conditions for a plant to thrive. There are two conjunctive necessary conditions. The plant must be located in a sunny spot and be watered regularly. The argument continues by failing one necessary condition. This spot isn’t sunny. Okay, that’s enough to fail the entire conjunctive necessary condition. We can validly draw the conclusion that this plant cannot be thriving. (B) attempts to fail the other necessary condition but does a bad job of it. The author didn’t regularly water this plant regularly. But that doesn’t mean the plant wasn’t watered regularly. Whose plant is it? Is it true that if the author didn’t water it, then no one watered it? The argument merely assumes so. But thankfully, we don’t care, since the necessary condition has been failed already.
Okay, so at this point, (B) is looking decent. The proper conclusion should be /thriving just like how the proper conclusion in the stimulus should be /friend. A false dichotomy for /thriving is “dead” or “dying.” That’s a false dichotomy because the true dichotomy for /thriving is a super-set that contains “dead” or “dying” or “just limping along” or “doing pretty good,” etc. There’s a whole spectrum of possibilities.
But the actual conclusion is “it explains why this plant is not as healthy as it should be.” That’s not a well-supported conclusion but for a different reason. This conclusion requires the assumption that the plant being “as healthy as it should be” means that it should be thriving. But thriving is a pretty high standard. (B) doesn’t give us any reason to believe that should be the standard.
Correct Answer Choice (C) opens with the premise that this book has been widely reviewed and hasn’t received even one hostile review. From that premise, (C) concludes that all the critics have loved this book. This is the false dichotomy flaw. The author assumes that one can only be hostile to or love the book and not both. But the true dichotomy is hostile to or not hostile. And not hostile isn’t equivalent to love. Not hostile is a super-set that contains love but it also contains indifference, like (not love), and other gradations of feelings.
Answer Choice (D) begins with a conditional that a decision in favor of developing the northern border of the town logically implies that it would be equally acceptable to develop the southern, eastern, or western borders. (D) concludes that it’s possible that at least one of the S, E, or W borders will also be developed. This is a strange argument. The premise has nothing to do with the conclusion. Just because it would be acceptable to develop doesn’t mean that development will take place. Moreover, we don’t even know if a decision in favor of developing the northern border has been reached.
Answer Choice (E) begins with a conditional that if everyone were an author, poet, or academic, then society would come to a halt. (E) then fails the sufficient condition. Few people are poets, authors, or academics. (E) then concludes that society will not come to a halt. This is sufficiency-necessity confusion. It’s the oldest flaw in the book but it’s not the flaw of false dichotomy.
This is a Parallel Method of Reasoning question.
The stimulus states a conditional rule: complete-24 and thesis → elig-masters
Then it applies the rule to one particular person, Roger: complete-24R and /elig-mastersR
The /elig-mastersR contraposes on the conditional, which implies that for Roger, either he /complete-24 or he /thesis. But we’re already told that he complete-24, therefore it must be true that he /thesis.
All together, the argument looks like this:
- complete-24 and thesis → elig-masters
- complete-24R and /elig-mastersR
- ________________________________________________
- /thesisR
Correct Answer Choice (A)
- mayor-app and council-app → open
- /open and council-app
- ________________________________________________
- /mayor-app
Answer Choice (B) has two problems.
- sci-fic → love or hate
This is the first problem. We need two jointly sufficient conditions. The second problem is that it’s not even clear if the “hate” condition is failed. (B) says, “I do not hate the movie I am watching now.” That suggests the author is reporting to us mid-movie. Like, he’s not even done with the movie yet. So, it’s possible that he changes his mind. The conclusion reinforces this with “probably.”
Answer Choice (C)
- govt-bought or other-bought → improve
- /improve
- ________________________________________________
- /govt-bought and /other-bought
This argument is valid but doesn’t match the form in the stimulus.
Answer Choice (D)
- sale → used or paperback
- saleB
- ________________________________________________
- /paperbackB → usedB
This argument is valid but doesn’t match the form in the stimulus.
Answer Choice (E)
- owe → higher or bankruptcy
- owe and /want-bankruptcy
- ________________________________________________
- higher
This argument doesn’t match the form in the stimulus. It’s also not valid because not wanting to declare bankruptcy isn’t the same as not declaring bankruptcy.
This is an AP question.
We’re asked to describe the role played by the statement that “the purpose of a law is to deter certain actions by threatening to punish those performing the actions.”
That appears as the first sentence in the stimulus. So that’s what the purpose of a law is. It’s to deter via threat of punishment. The next sentence reveals a potential weakness in the form of a necessary condition. In order for deterrence to work via threat of punishment, potential violators must believe that they’re likely to be punished. Is that a problem? Do potential violators believe that they’re likely to be punished? The next sentence says that the likelihood that someone will be punished decreases as the number of types of prohibited actions increases. That could be a problem. The more prohibitions we have, the less likely that someone will be caught and punished for violating the prohibitions. So the more prohibitions we have, the less likely potential violators will believe that they’ll be punished. But that would risk undermining the deterrence purpose of a law.
The argument could have established that as its conclusion. It could have given a clear statement to crystalize the problem: the more prohibitions we have, the less likely we are to have a successful legal system.
But the argument actually reaches a different kind of conclusion. It reaches a conclusion about how to prevent that problem from arising. Thus it concludes that a successful legal system (one that achieves its deterrence purpose) prohibits only those few behaviors that citizens find absolutely intolerable. In other words, keep the number of prohibitions small so as to avoid the problem outlined above.
So, what’s the role played by stating that the purpose of a law is deterrence? It’s to support the argument’s conclusion by laying out what it means for a legal system to be successful. It has to achieve its purpose of deterrence via threat of punishment. It’s a premise.
That’s what Correct Answer Choice (C) says.
Answer Choice (A) is correct in claiming that it offers support, but it’s incorrect in identifying the target of that support. There’s no implicit conclusion about the necessity of police officers.
Answer Choice (B) says it’s the conclusion of the argument and that’s incorrect.
Answer Choice (D) says it’s an intermediate conclusion. But in order to be an intermediate conclusion, the claim must receive some support. This claim receives no support.
Answer Choice (E) says it’s a view that the argument is designed to discredit. But that’s not true. The argument uses this view to reach its main conclusion.
This is an SA question.
The argument opens with OPA. “Many people” believe that independent films have more integrity as work than major studio productions because indies are less conventional. Okay, great. That’s OPA.
The author (filmmaker) transitions to her argument with “however.” The premise is that indie filmmakers’ need to make a profit affects their artistic decisions. The conclusion is that indie films do not have absolute artistic integrity.
This looks a lot like a PSA question. The premise can be represented as P and the conclusion as C. We need to build a P→C bridge. If profit affects artistic decisions, then there is no absolute artistic integrity. Or something like that.
Correct Answer Choice (B) says if any of the artistic decisions made in creating something were affected by the need to make profits, then that creation does not have absolute integrity as a work of art. That works as a P→C bridge. As is often the case, the correct answer covers more than what we need. (B) covers any artistic decision, not just the ones involved in filmmaking. But that’s fine.
Answer Choice (A) can be eliminated on its logic alone. You can either notice that the sufficient condition here is “artistic decision unaffected by profit needs” or notice that the necessary condition here is “creation has absolute artistic integrity.” Both are wrong. The sufficient condition is supposed to be P, not /P. The necessary condition is supposed to be C, not /C. This is a recurring type of wrong answer for SA and PSA questions. It’s sufficiency-necessity confusion.
Answer Choice (C) can be eliminated by noticing that it’s a comparative statement. We need a logically tight bridge. (C) says that individual creations tend to have more artistic integrity than group creations. Okay, but the argument isn’t concerned with comparing “individual creations” to “group creations.” Only OPA talks about indie films in comparison to major studio productions. No doubt major studio productions are “group creations.” But don’t assume that indie films are “individual creations.” They probably involve fewer people but they probably still involve more than one person.
Answer Choice (D) precludes something as having an effect on artistic integrity. (D) precludes the “unconventionality” of a creation as having an effect on artistic integrity. Okay, now what? The argument is assuming that profit requirements have an effect on artistic integrity. More specifically, it assumes that the effect is that it taints artistic integrity.
Answer Choice (E) is a conditional constructed with “unless.” Translated to an “if...then...” construction, we get, “If artistic decisions were affected by views about what is conventional, then no artistic integrity.” The problem here is that the premises in the argument do not trigger the sufficient condition. All we know about indie filmmakers is that they need to make a profit, which affects their artistic decisions. It’s a further assumption that the need to make a profit amounts to a “view about what is conventional.” The necessary condition in (E) is more than what’s needed, but that’s not a problem for SA answers. If we could have triggered the sufficient condition here, then we could have drawn the conclusion that a creation has no artistic integrity. That would have necessarily implied that it doesn’t have absolute artistic integrity.
This is an NA question.
The stimulus proceeds in order from premises to the conclusion. Bovine remains were found in a certain place back when that place had an arid (dry) climate. There were people present at that time in that region but no other large mammals. If there were natural sources of water available, there would also have been other large mammals. But we already know there were no other large mammals. We can contrapose to infer that there were no natural sources of water available.
The argument hence concludes that these bovines had been domesticated (people were providing it water) and the people there were no longer exclusively hunter-gatherers.
This sounds like a decent argument, right? If you think so, then you’re already supplying the missing assumption, that if they weren’t domesticated, they couldn’t have survived. But really, we don’t know that. Perhaps they were wild and crafty and survived by taking advantage of man-made water sources. That would be bad for the argument. So we do need to supply the assumption connecting the premises (arid climate, no natural water sources) to the conclusion (domestication).
This is what Correct Answer Choice (A) does. Translating the “unless,” (A) says that if the bovines weren’t domesticated, they were unlikely to exist in a region without natural sources of water. The premises fail the necessary condition (the bovines likely did exist), which allows us to infer the failure of the sufficient condition (the bovines were domesticated) as the conclusion. This connects the premises to the conclusion. More than that, it truly is necessary. If we deny this conditional relationship, we’re asserting that it’s possible for the bovines to be wild yet survive anyway in this arid region. That’s exactly the possibility that we contemplated above that would ruin the argument.
Answer Choice (B) says that domesticating animals is one of the first things that a society must do when transitioning from hunter-gatherer to agriculture. This is unnecessary. Why first? Why not second or third? Also notice that it’s trying to bridge the two concepts in the conclusion, that of “domestication” and that of “no longer exclusively hunter-gatherer.” But we don’t need to build that bridge. They are already connected by their definitions. Domestication necessarily implies no longer exclusively hunter-gatherer. A culture that practices domestication cannot be exclusively hunter-gatherer.
Answer Choice (C) says that other large mammals would have been able to inhabit this arid region with the help of humans. So, like what? Horses? That’s required? No, it’s not. Let’s imagine this were false. Even with the help of humans, this arid region could not have supported horses. Who cares? The argument is still as strong as it ever was.
Answer Choice (D) says no human culture can be a hybrid of agriculture and hunter-gatherer. So (D) is claiming that all human cultures must be exclusively either an agricultural society or else a hunter-gatherer society. You can’t do both. But that’s silly. It doesn’t affect the argument if there was a culture that both planted wheat and hunted meat. In fact, the conclusion in the stimulus claims that these people are a kind of hybrid culture.
Answer Choice (E) says that a domesticated cow doesn’t need as much water as a wild cow. This might strengthen the argument? Like their modest demand for water might help explain why humans were able to domesticate them in an arid climate. But it’s not necessary. Imagine this were false and the cows required the same amount of water, regardless of whether they were domesticated or wild. The argument would still be fine. It would just have been not as easy to domesticate them.