PT132.S2.Q7

PrepTest 132 - Section 2 - Question 7

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When the famous art collector Vidmar died, a public auction of her collection, the largest privately owned, was held. ██ █████ ████████ ██████ ███ ██ █████ █████ ███████ ████ ██ █████ ███ ████ ████████ ███████████ ████ █████████ ██ █ ██████ ████████ ████████ ███ █████ ████████

MacNeil's Reasoning

MacNeil hears that Vidmar's collection is among the most valuable ever assembled and concludes that she can't afford any individual work in it. The reasoning: the collection as a whole is extremely valuable, so every single piece in it must also be extremely valuable.

Expensive Collection ≠ Every Piece Expensive

This is a whole-to-part flaw. A property of the whole (being extremely valuable) is attributed to each individual part (each artwork). But a collection can be worth a fortune without every piece in it being expensive.

Vidmar's Collection — worth $15 million total
🖼️
$8 million
🖼️
$6.9 million
🖼️
$40
MacNeil might be able to afford that last one.

Maybe two famous paintings account for nearly all the value and the rest are inexpensive. The total price tag on the collection tells us nothing definitive about what any individual piece costs. MacNeil has no basis for concluding she can't afford any of the works.

What to Match

For Parallel Flaw questions, we need an answer that commits the same error in the same direction. Specifically:

✓ Match this: Whole has property → each part has property (flawed)
✗ Not this: Each part has property → whole has property (wrong direction)

Watch out for answers that are flawed but go from part-to-whole instead of whole-to-part.

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7.

The flawed pattern of reasoning ██ █████ ███ ██ ███ █████████ ██ ████ ███████ ████████ ██ ████ ██ █████████ █████████

a

Each word in ███ ████ ██ ██ ███████ ██ ███ █████ ████ ██ ██ ███████

b

The city council █████ ███████████ ██ █████ ███ █████ ██ █████████████ ████████ █████ ██ █████ ███ █████

c

This paragraph is █████ ██ ███ █████████ ████ ████████ ██ ███ █████

d

The members of ███ ███████ ███ ████ ██ ███ ███████ ██████ ██ ████

e

The atoms comprising ████ ████████ ███ █████████ ██ ███ ████████ ██████ ██ ██ ████████

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