This is a Parallel Flaw Method of Reasoning question.
The question tests your understanding of quantifier and conditional logic.
The argument in the stimulus translates to:
fl-journalist ←s→ sell-lax-mag → /self-respecting
__________________
/fl-journalist ←s→ self-respecting
The conclusion is flawed. The valid conclusion that could have been drawn is:
fl-journalist ←s→ /self-respecting
Generalizing from this particular flawed argument, the form is this:
A ←s→ B → /C
__________________
/A ←s→ C
We need to find the same form in one of the answer choices.
Answer Choice (A)’s premise translates to:
high-school ←s→ bio → /kindergarten
In order for (A) to be right, the conclusion should have said:
/high-school ←s→ kindergarten
Or in English, “Some kindergarten teachers are not high school teachers.” But it doesn’t say that. It says “Biology is not taught by all teachers.” That’s a valid conclusion. It follows simply from the premise that kindergarten teachers don’t teach biology.
Answer Choice (B)’s premise translates to:
sbm —m→ teacher → /prefer
Like (A), this is a good setup for (B) to be right. In order for (B) to be right, the conclusion should have said:
/sbm ←s→ prefer
Or in English, “Some non-school board members prefer admin work to teaching.” But it doesn’t say that. It says, “Few school board members prefer admin work to teaching.”
Correct Answer Choice (C)’s premise translates to:
student ←s→ prefer → /member
In order for (C) to be right, the conclusion needs to say:
/student ←s→ member
Or in English, “Some members of the Calculus Club are not students.” That’s exactly what the conclusion in (C) says. This is an invalid conclusion. The valid conclusion is “student ←s→ /member” or “Some students are not members of the Calculus Club.”
Answer Choice (D)’s premise translates to:
princ ←s→ harsh-disc → /adviser
In order for (D) to be right, the conclusion should have said:
/princ ←s→ adviser
Or in English, “Some advisers to a debate team are not principals.” But it doesn’t say that. It says, “Some principals are not advisers to a debate team.” That’s a valid conclusion.
Answer Choice (E)’s premise translates to:
popular ←s→ leave-early
coaches → /leave-before-3
(E) is already wrong for the fact that the premises do not connect.
As a Blind Review exercise, we can fix (E) up:
popular ←s→ leave-early → /coach
Fixing the premises like this gives (E) a chance. (E) could say that, therefore, some coaches are not popular teachers. That would be the same formal flaw in the stimulus and therefore make (E) the right answer.
This is a Flaw/Descriptive Weakening question.
The argument contains one premise and one conclusion. The premise is that last year and the year before, Browning (a town, presumably) experienced significantly more rainfall in September than in July. The conclusion is predictive. It predicts that this year, Browning will probably also experience more rain in September than in July.
This is a terrible argument and you intuitively understand why. Two instances is not enough data to establish a pattern when it comes to rainfall. Imagine if this argument had a premise that said, “Meteorological records indicate that over the past two hundred years, Browning experienced significantly more rainfall in September than in July.” Well, now we’re talking. This is a pattern and it supports a prediction that this year, Browning will probably also experience more rain in September than in July. At least that would be the default reasonable position and the burden would be on the person claiming this year to be an exception to provide the evidence. Why? Because when it comes to rainfall patterns, two data points isn’t enough and two hundred is. Where is the line between enough and not enough? Is 30 data points enough? What about ten? I don’t know, ask a meteorologist. But you and I both know that two isn’t and two hundred is.
The flawed method of reasoning in this argument is recurring. This is a type of analogy flaw. The argument tries to draw a conclusion about the future based on information about the past. The central assumption is that the future is relevantly similar to the past. That assumption may be true or it may be false. It all depends on what specifically we’re talking about in the premises and the conclusion. Here, in this premise, we have past information that is scant. And so the conclusion about the future is poorly supported.
Correct Answer Choice (B) points this out. It says the argument is weak because it draws an inference about a future event on the basis of a very limited number of instances of related past events. That’s it.
Answer Choice (A) says that the argument contains a premise that presupposed the truth of the conclusion. This is a charge of circular reasoning, of begging the question. This is descriptively inaccurate. The premise is a description of past events. The conclusion is a prediction of a future event. The premise (about what already happened) does not presuppose the conclusion (about what likely will happen) to be true. Here’s a circular argument guilty of the charge in (A): Last year and the year before, Browning experienced significantly more rainfall in September than in July. Therefore, in the past two years, Browning experienced significantly less rainfall in July than in September.
Answer Choice (C) says that the argument overemphasizes the possibility that average rainfall statistics could be skewed by large rainfall in one year. What? “Overemphasizes”? But that possibility wasn’t even present in the argument. (C) is descriptively inaccurate.
Answer Choice (D) says that the argument concludes that “two phenomena are associated.” Hold up. Is that an accurate description of the conclusion? The most charitable reading of the conclusion to accommodate (D) would be to interpret one phenomenon as amount of rain and the other phenomenon as time, namely what month it is, namely whether it’s September or July. Stretching the bounds of reasonable interpretation, we can map (D)’s description of the conclusion onto the actual conclusion. That the amount of rainfall is associated with whether it’s September or July. Okay, fine. Let’s check out (D)’s premise descriptor. Merely from the claim that there are “many instances in which both phenomena are present.” Uh, no. Our interpretation is broken. Many instances? The premise contains two instances. Last year and the year before. Last year, “both phenomena were present”? What does that even mean? Last year there was rain and there was September/July? See, that makes no sense.
Answer Choice (E) says that the argument uses evidence drawn from a source whose reliability cannot readily be verified. No, that’s not descriptively accurate. We have no idea where the historical data came from. We therefore have no idea if that source’s reliability can or cannot be readily verified.
This is a Flaw/Descriptive Weakening question.
The student claims that his paper was not graded in accordance with the professor’s stated criteria. That sounds like the conclusion. Okay, why not? What did the professor say the criteria would be? She said that she’d give As only to papers whose conclusions were supported by reliable statistical evidence. That’s a conditional. A → rse. His paper’s conclusion was supported by rse yet he got a B.
I don’t see what the problem is here. His paper met a necessary condition for getting an A. But he’s complaining that he only got a B? Oh, he must be confused about sufficient and necessary conditions. He thought rse → A. That’s why he thinks the professor should have given him an A.
This is the oldest mistake in the book. Correct Answer Choice (C) points it out. He takes a condition that is among the requirements (necessary) for a particular grade to be a condition that is enough to guarantee (sufficient) that grade.
Answer Choice (A) says the argument discusses the prof’s criteria as a distraction. But that’s descriptively inaccurate. The argument discusses the prof’s criteria in order to apply it to the case at hand, not to call attention away from anything.
Answer Choice (B) says the argument committed the descriptive premise to prescriptive conclusion flaw. That’s not what the argument does. The argument’s conclusion and premises are all descriptive.
Answer Choice (D) says the argument is based on the report of a biased participant in the controversy. Yes, this is descriptively accurate. The student is reporting the facts to us, facts about what the stated criteria was and facts about his paper. He is presumably biased. But so what? It’s not because of his bias that this argument is weak. His argument is weak because of a logical error.
Answer Choice (E) says the argument conflated the professor’s grading criteria with the objective criteria of a paper’s quality. What does this mean? (E) claims that there are two different criteria. There’s the professor’s criteria for grading (A only if rse). Then there’s the objective criteria for quality. What is it? (E) doesn’t say but presumably it’s different from the prof’s criteria. But there’s just one criteria. It’s not like the student argued that his paper met the prof’s criteria and therefore must be an objectively high-quality paper.
This is a Flaw/Descriptive Weakening question.
The argument opens with a general principle. Generally, it’s important that people practice what they preach but there are exceptions. The next sentence opens with “For instance…” which means we’re about to get premises. The argument is saying, “Let me show you instances of the exceptions, in case you don’t believe me.”
Okay, so what are the “instances”? Doctors don’t have to have healthy lifestyles in order to treat people. So that’s an instance. Also, logicians don’t have to be logical in their discussion of logic.
Had the argument simply been presented like that, then where we would question the reasoning would be on the two supposed instances “exceptions.” We could argue whether doctors are an exception to the rule or if they actually fit into the rule. We might argue that, actually, it's important for doctors to practice what they preach for whatever reason. This is what Answer Choice (B) tries to argue. And then we’d try to do the same for logicians. Do they fit the rule or fit the exception?
But the actual argument isn't just "For instance, doctors are an exception and logicians are an exception." The actual argument analogizes logicians to doctors. In so doing, the question of whether either fits the rule or the exception becomes entangled. They are no longer separate analyses.
The actual argument pegs whether logicians must practice what they preach to whether doctors must practice what they preach, as if answering the question for doctors reveals some information that answers the question for logicians. That is the crucial assumption at play.
- Assumption: With regard to whether it's important to practice what you preach, doctors and logicians are analogous.
- Premise: Doctors don’t need to have healthy lifestyles to treat people.
- Sub-conclusion: Logicians don’t have to be logical to discuss logic.
That assumption is fallacious because doctors and logicians are not analogous in that regard. This is what Correct Answer Choice (A) points out. If a doctor doesn’t practice what she preaches, then she can still effectively do her job of being a doctor: treat people. If a logician doesn’t practice what she preaches, then she can no longer do her job of being a logician: logically discuss logic. One can even question to what extent an illogical logician can even be considered a logician. Yet a doctor with an unhealthy lifestyle is no less a doctor. (A) points this out. It says that the argument is weak because it failed to take into account that logicians’ being illogical constitutes incompetence whereas physicians’ having unhealthy lifestyles doesn’t. This is where the two situations are relevantly dissimilar.
Answer Choice (B) says that the argument is weak because it fails to take into account that if a physician’s health deteriorates badly, the physician may not be able to treat patients effectively. This is descriptively accurate but it’s not where the argument is weak. We’ve already discussed how (B) fits into the argument above. (B) offers a reason for a doctor to “practice what she preaches” by pointing out what could happen on the far end of the spectrum. How effectively does this challenge a doctor being an “exception” to the rule? Not that effectively. The argument’s point stands for most cases. In general, a doctor’s having an unhealthy lifestyle does not prevent her from treating people, even though it’s true that if her health deteriorated badly, then she won't be able to treat people anymore. So (B) isn’t very effective in challenging the claim that doctors are an exception.
If we interpreted (B) to address the issue of the disanalogy, that would be even worse for (B). Let’s just assume that doctors aren’t exceptions, that they instead fit better into the rule. That they should also practice what they preach. If we grant this concession, (B) seems to be arguing that logicians also should not be exceptions to the rule either. The questionable aspect of the reasoning or why it feels wrong to us to say that logicians don’t have to be logical, according to (B), is that the argument fails to take into account that doctors actually do have to practice what they preach. See, says (B), doctors have to do it and so logicians should as well. Problem solved. Logicians do have to be logical, after all.
No. That entirely misses the point! The reason why the analogy failed in the first place is because doctors and logicians are essentially disanalogous when it comes to “practice what you preach.” Whether doctors have to or not reveals no information about whether logicians have to or not, because they’re dissimilar in that regard. They’re disanalogous. (A) pointed that out already. (B)’s reasoning still assumes that doctors and logicians are actually analogous; we just got the direction wrong, that doctors actually aren’t exceptions.
Answer Choice (C) says that the argument is weak because it fails to take into account that doctors who are incompetent to practice medicine can cause more harm than can logicians who discuss logic illogically. Okay, (C) tries to point out a difference between doctors and logicians. The problem is that (C) can’t point to just any difference. The difference has to matter. That’s what’s meant by “relevant” dissimilarity (if you’re trying to disanalogize) or “relevant” similarity (if you’re trying to analogize). What counts as “relevant” changes depending on what specifically the argument is talking about. Here, we are talking about why it’s important for logicians to practice what they preach yet not as important for doctors to practice what they preach. What’s “relevant” isn’t the disparate impact that doctors and logicians have on other people, because that doesn’t expose the disanalogy. What exposes the disanalogy is, again, what was already discussed in (A).
Perhaps a different argument will illustrate the point: doctors are required to attend four years of medical school and then complete four years of residency before they are allowed to practice their trade. Therefore, logicians should also be subject to similar educational requirements. This argument by analogy is vulnerable because of what (C) says. The reason why doctors are required to go through eight years of training is because they have the potential to cause great harm. This is a point of relevant dissimilarity between doctors and logicians. This dissimilarity is why the argument’s reasoning by analogy fails.
Answer Choice (D) says that the argument is weak because it fails to take into account that it’s more difficult to become logical than it is to modify an unhealthy lifestyle. Similar to (C), (D) points out a difference but not a relevant difference. The fact that it’s harder to become logical than it is to adopt a healthy lifestyle isn’t why the argument’s reasoning by analogy fails. Even if the two endeavors were equally difficult, the argument’s reasoning by analogy would still fail for the reasons stated in (A).
Answer Choice (E) says that the argument is weak because it fails to take into account that it’s not necessary for logicians to be logical in order to competently discuss logic, though it is highly desirable. No, it is both highly desirable and necessary for logicians to be logical in order to competently discuss logic.
A
It is a premise offered in support of the claim that contaminated water currently presents a much more widespread threat to the community than does ozone.
B
It is a premise offered in support of the claim that there is unlikely to be a widespread, grassroots effort for new, more restrictive air pollution controls at this time.
C
It is used to explain the current public awareness of the severity of the problem of contaminated water.
D
It is presented as indisputable evidence that ozone can be dangerous for severe asthmatics even if found in levels much lower than maximum levels permitted by law.
E
It is the main conclusion drawn in the argument.
This is an AP question.
We’re asked to describe the role played by the statement that “you cannot travel back in time to spend a year abroad at Plato’s Academy.”
That’s interesting. Let’s take a look at the argument. The Classicist (author) begins with a conclusion: that our mastery of Latin and Ancient Greek is at best imperfect. I say this is a conclusion because I instinctively want to ask, “Why?” Convince me this is so. The author tries. She says that the best students of a modern language—okay, pause. Do you see the analogy? She’s trying to conclude something about Latin and Ancient Greek yet she’s using premises about modern languages. This is an argument by analogy. Whatever she’s going to say about modern languages, we have to at minimum assume that the ancient languages are similar to modern languages in this regard. So what does she say? She says that students can immerse themselves in, say, Italy, so as to attain nearly perfect knowledge of Italian. But we cannot travel back in time to spend a year abroad at Plato’s Academy. See? That’s why our mastery of Latin and Ancient Greek is at best imperfect.
Alright, this isn’t a Weaken or Strengthen question so let’s resist the urge to analyze the strength of the support. Instead, we’ve already done our job of labeling the various parts of this argument. The claim in question is a premise. Let’s turn now to the answers.
Answer Choice (A) says it’s the main conclusion. No, it’s not. The first sentence is the main conclusion.
Correct Answer Choice (B) says it points out by example a contrast from which the conclusion is drawn. Yes, that’s right. The example given in the middle of the argument is a student of a modern language traveling to the country to gain near perfect knowledge via immersion. That we cannot travel back in time to spend a year abroad at Plato’s Academy is the example that points out the contrast. Plato’s Academy is just an example. It could just as well have been Aristotle’s Lyceum. The point is to contrast what modern students of modern languages can do versus what modern students of ancient languages cannot do in order to support the conclusion that our knowledge of ancient languages is at best imperfect.
Answer Choice (C) says it’s a mere rhetorical flourish having no logical relation to the argument’s conclusion. It has a logical relation to the conclusion. It supports the conclusion. Here’s an example of a “mere rhetorical flourish.” Imagine editing the last claim, “But as much as it would disappoint Plato, we cannot travel back in time to study with him at his Academy.” That bit of language is a mere rhetorical flourish, dull as it may be, having no logical relation to the argument’s conclusion. Whether or not Plato would be disappointed has nothing to do with the argument.
Answer Choice (D) says it’s a premise. That’s good. But what follows isn’t. (D) says the truth of the argument’s conclusion is guaranteed. No, I’m afraid not. (D) claims that this argument is deductively valid. But arguments by analogy cannot be valid. At best, they can only be “very strong” because all analogies fall apart at some point. I think (D) may be attractive because we confuse the truth of a conclusion with the validity of its support. We all think it’s just true that our mastery of Ancient Greek is at best imperfect. That seems obviously true. No one really knows how Ancient Greek was spoken. We can only make educated guesses. That’s all fine and good. But that says nothing about whether this argument guarantees the truth of that claim. The argument we have is an argument by analogy. Arguments by analogy are inherently precluded from guaranteeing the truth of their conclusions. Imagine a different kind of argument:
If a language is no longer the native language of any community, then our mastery of it will at best be imperfect. Latin and Ancient Greek are not and haven’t been the native languages of any community for hundreds of years. Therefore, our mastery of Latin and Ancient Greek is at best imperfect.
Notice that the conclusion is exactly the same as that in the actual argument. But in this argument, the conclusion is deductively valid. That means the premises guarantee its truth.
Answer Choice (E) says it’s an ancillary conclusion drawn in the argument. Ancillary means sub or intermediate. But that’s right. There is no support given to this claim. It’s just a premise.
This is an NA question.
The argument starts with a causal premise. There are at least two causes for the “troubles from which a patient seeks relief through psychotherapy.” One cause is “internal: [stimulus doesn’t tell us what].” The other is external: the patient’s relationship with other people.
The argument concludes that to help a patient heal, the psychotherapist must focus on the need for positive change in those relationships.
Okay, so the argument assumes that because the relationship is a partial cause of the problem, solving the problem requires working on that cause.
Answer Choice (C) sounds like it’s addressing that link. It tells us that those patients who do change their relationships will consequently find relief from at least some of their troubles. If it’s the right kind of change, then this strengthens the argument. (C) shows that improving the relationship does produce positive effects. That makes the conclusion more plausible. But (C) isn’t necessary. Think about how the conclusion could still be true even if (C) were false. First, what would it mean for (C) to be false? It would mean that it’s possible for a patient who changed their relationships with other people to find no relief at all. How can the conclusion still be true, i.e., how can we still require therapists to focus on the need for positive change in the patient’s relationships? Because the change in (C) didn’t reveal direction. That means the change could be positive or negative. Clearly, if the change is in the negative direction, the therapist would just tell them that they did it wrong. But even if the change was in the positive direction, there’s no reason to assume that all positive changes are equal. Some positive changes to the relationship might not yield relief. The therapist would still have room to say that yes, you made positive changes in your relationship, which is good, but the kind of positive change that I want to help you make is different. And it’s those kinds of positive changes that will help you heal.
Correct Answer Choice (D) doesn’t have any of these issues. (D) starts with the therapists, not the patients. (D) says that no therapist can help a patient heal solely by addressing the internal causes of the patient’s troubles. This is absolutely necessary. (D) protects the assumption we identified above, that because relationships contribute to the problem, they must be a part of the solution. Imagine if (D) were false. That means a therapist can help a patient heal solely by focusing on the internal causes. This is incompatible with a requirement to have the therapist focus on the external (relationship) causes. If (D) were false, then the premises lose all their supportive power. We don’t care that some of the causes are external because we can disregard them yet solve the problem anyway.
Answer Choice (A) lays out a necessary condition for therapists to help change their patients’ relationships. (A) says that it requires those patients to focus on “other people’s troubles.” Okay, why do we need to assume this? What if it’s possible for therapists to help change their patients’ relationships without the patients having to focus on other people’s troubles? That would seem to be just fine with the argument.
Answer Choice (B) says that if a therapist helps change a patient’s relationships, then there must be at least some patients who won’t be healed. What, why? Why must there be at least one patient who doesn’t improve? This cuts against what the argument is saying. Perhaps (B) wanted to say if a therapist helps change a patient’s relationships, then there must be at least some patients who would be healed? Even then, I don’t think this would be required since the conclusion claims the positive change in the relationship to be a necessary condition of healing whereas this edited version of (B) is claiming the positive change to be a sufficient condition.
Answer Choice (E) says that if a therapist helps a patient focus on the set of troubles that are purely internal, then relief will be achieved. This is also unnecessary. First, notice that this refuses to accept the premise. The premise already claimed that the troubles from which patients seek relief are not purely internal. Second, we do not need to assume that a strategy that ignores external (relationship) causes will be successful.
This is an NA question.
The stimulus starts with OPA. Many scientists hypothesize that there’s a “light-absorbing medium” because the existence of a light-absorbing medium would explain why other star systems are only dimly visible from Earth. With the word “but,” the author signals the transition from context to argument. The author opens with the conclusion that there’s no reason to believe that the light-absorbing medium hypothesis is correct. Okay, why? Because the low visibility of other star systems is already fully explained by the general theory of relativity.
What assumption is required? If you already see it, then you can go into hunt mode but I’ll proceed from here as if you don’t and use POE.
Answer Choice (A) says that the low visibility of other star systems wouldn’t be adequately explained by the existence of a light-absorbing medium. So basically (A) contradicts other people’s premise. OPP said that the medium’s existence would explain but (A) says it wouldn’t. This isn’t necessary. In general, if you want to weaken someone else’s argument, you don’t have to contradict their premises. You could, but it’s not a requirement.
Answer Choice (B) says that light-absorbing medium hypothesis requires it to adequately explain the low visibility of other star systems. This is also unnecessary. (B) seems to think that the argument is different from what it actually is. If the argument had been the following, then (B) would be right.
Premise: light-absorbing medium hypothesis fails to adequately explain the low visibility of other star systems
Conclusion: light-absorbing medium hypothesis is false
This is the argument that (B) has in mind. But the actual argument is nothing like this. The premise is different and so is the conclusion. The conclusion in the actual argument isn’t that the hypothesis is false; rather, it’s just that there’s no reason to believe that it’s true. This is a distinction that Flaw questions repeatedly test. The author is concluding that OPA failed to give good reasons for the hypothesis, not that the hypothesis is false. The premise is also different. The actual premise is that the phenomenon of low visibility is already explained by some other theory, not that the OPA hypothesis fails to adequately explain the phenomenon.
Answer Choice (C) is similar to (B). It seems to think that the argument is something else. (C) says that if there’s some phenomenon that a hypothesis adequately accounts for and that is not adequately accounted for by an existing theory, then that hypothesis is likely to be correct. If the argument had been the following, then (C) would be right.
Premise: low visibility of other star systems is a phenomenon that existing theory can’t adequately account for but is adequately accounted for by the light-absorbing medium hypothesis
Conclusion: light-absorbing medium hypothesis is likely correct
The actual premise in the argument is just the opposite. It’s saying that an existing theory does adequately account for the phenomenon. The actual conclusion is also pushing in the opposite direction.
Answer Choice (D) says that most proponents of the light-absorbing medium hypothesis accept the general theory of relativity. That’s not necessary. It’s fine for the argument if OPA rejects the general theory of relativity. The argument is just as strong as it ever was.
Correct Answer Choice (E) says that the general theory of relativity does not depend on the light-absorbing medium hypothesis. Yeah, that must be true. If the general theory did depend on the hypothesis, then the argument would fall apart. There would be reason to believe that the hypothesis is correct.
This is a Method of Reasoning question.
The argument is pretty abstract which is a big reason why this question is difficult. It starts with other people’s position (OPP). Some researchers claim that people tend to gesture more when they speak about what would typically be considered physical concepts than abstract ones. Okay, so according to these researchers, someone speaking about cats and dogs will tend to gesture more than when speaking about prime numbers. That sounds plausible, I guess.
Now the author transitions to her argument. She opens with her conclusion that to point out that such a correlation (that’s OPP, the correlation between gesture and physical concepts) is far from universal is insufficient to reject OPP. In other words, pointing out exceptions to the correlation isn’t enough to reject the correlation. That also sounds right. In general, a correlation isn’t ironclad. There will be nonconforming exceptions. That’s my reasoning, not the author’s. Before we get to the author’s premise, note that the author is actually defending OPP! Is it Christmas in July? What is happening? The author’s conclusion is basically “Here’s one ineffective line of attack on OPP. You can’t just point out that the correlation isn’t universal and think that constitutes a successful attack on the correlation.”
Okay, now that we’ve gotten over the shock, what is her premise? How does she support that conclusion? “Because” some people perceive words like “comprehension” as a physical action like grasping something, whereas others perceive it as an abstract action like a state of understanding. Alright, that works. She’s saying you can’t attack OPP by pointing out apparent counterexamples because it’s not clear that they even are counterexamples. Take “comprehension,” for instance. Someone gestures a lot when talking about comprehension, whereas someone else gestures a little. Is that a counterexample to the correlation that gesture goes with physical concepts? Well, not necessarily because it could be that the person gesturing a lot perceives “comprehension” as a physical act, whereas a person not gesturing much perceives “comprehension” as an abstract act. In that case, this would fit with the correlation.
Let’s look at the answers now.
Answer Choice (A) can be analyzed piecemeal by looking at the conclusion and premise descriptors separately. (A) says the argument “appeals to X in an attempt to show Y.” We appeal to premises to show conclusions, not the other way around. So the first part is the premise descriptor and the second part the conclusion descriptor. Is there an appeal to the ambiguity of a word in the premise? Yes. “Comprehension” is the word. And it’s ambiguous whether that’s perceived as a physical or abstract concept. Great, let’s now look at the conclusion descriptor. “In an attempt to show that a correlation is universal.” But that’s wrong. The author’s conclusion isn’t trying to show that the correlation is universal. She’s just fending off one particular attack on it being universal. There’s a difference between affirmatively proving a position, which she’s not doing here, and pointing out that a class of arguments is weak, which she is doing here.
Answer Choice (B) can also be analyzed piecemeal. The premise descriptor says that the argument “appeals to a universal psychological generalization.” But that’s not an accurate description of the premise. If anything, the premise is a rejection of a universal psychological generalization. The premise declares that some people perceive a word one way and others another. The only part of the stimulus that might be accurately characterized as a universal psychological generalization is OPP. That’s enough to eliminate (B). The conclusion descriptor says, “in an attempt to support a claim about the use of gestures.” That’s also an inaccurate description. The conclusion is that one claim isn’t powerful enough to reject another claim.
Correct Answer Choice (C) can also be analyzed piecemeal. (C) says the argument “cites X to try to show Y.” We cite premises to reach conclusions, so the first part is the premise descriptor and the second part the conclusion descriptor. The premise descriptor says, “citing a psychological fact.” Yes, that’s true. The psychological fact cited is that people perceive words like “comprehension” differently. The conclusion descriptor says, “to try to reconcile a generalization with apparently disconfirming evidence.” That’s also true. That’s not the most direct description of the conclusion but that’s certainly the underlying reasoning. The reason why the author says this particular line of attack on OPP fails is because what looks like disconfirming evidence (the variable rates of gestures with the word “comprehension”) may be reconciled with the generalization (the correlation) by realizing that people perceive the word differently.
Answer Choice (D) can also be analyzed piecemeal. (D) says the argument “advocates X by attempting to demonstrate that Y.” We advocate conclusions so the first part is the conclusion descriptor and the second part the premise descriptor. But the conclusion descriptor is inaccurate. The author’s conclusion isn’t an explanation of a phenomenon. Her premise, on the other hand, can be viewed as an explanation of a phenomenon. Her premise explains why there’s inconsistency between gesturing and articulations of certain words like “comprehension.” The explanation is that people perceive those kinds of words differently. Yet (D) describes that premise inaccurately as “attempting to demonstrate that other possible explanations are implausible.”
Answer Choice (E) says the argument offers a reason for believing that a widely accepted generalization requires still more supporting evidence. First of all, what’s “widely accepted generalization”? The correlation claimed by “some researchers”? There’s no evidence that that’s widely accepted. Already inaccurate. Second, the author isn’t arguing for the claim that the correlation requires more supporting evidence. Rather, as already discussed, the author is just protecting that correlation from one particular mode of attack.
This is a Sufficient Assumption question.
The argument starts with a conditional: a thriving population of turtles in a pond requires beneficial conditions at the pond.
thriving → beneficial
Wallakim Pond, we’re told, has acidic water.
acidicw
We’re also told that Sosachi Pond doesn’t but the conclusion doesn’t care about Sosachi and so we shouldn’t either.
Finally, the conclusion says that the population of turtles at Wallakim Pond must not be thriving.
/thrivingw
Let’s put this all together.
thriving → beneficial
acidicw
_________________
/thrivingw
Looking at the conclusion, you can see that the argument is trying to contrapose on the conditional. It’s trying to fail the “beneficial” condition. If it’s successful in doing that, then we can conclude “/thriving.” But the problem is that the only other premise doesn’t hook up to “/beneficial.” We don’t know what “acidic” means for turtles. Is that beneficial for them or not? If we’re able to establish that “/acidic” is a necessary condition, then this argument becomes valid:
thriving → beneficial → /acidic
acidicw
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/thrivingw
This is what Correct Answer Choice (E) gives us. It says that the conditions of a pond are beneficial only if the water is not acidic. That’s exactly what we’re looking for: beneficial → /acidic.
Answer Choice (A) says that if the water is not acidic, then the conditions are beneficial. /acidic → beneficial. That’s the sufficiency-necessity confused version of (E).
Answer Choice (B) says that the acidity of water is the most important factor that determines whether the population of turtles will be thriving. But that doesn’t tell us whether acid is good or bad. It just says it’s powerful. In which direction? Even if (B) said that it’s in the bad direction, it would merely strengthen the argument, which would still fall short of the SA requirement.
This is what we in effect get in Answer Choice (C). It says that the conditions at Sosachi are more beneficial than the conditions at Wallakim. We have to assume that all other conditions are held equal between Sosachi and Wallakim. On that assumption, we can infer that the difference is caused by the difference in their waters’ acidity. But even then, it just means that acidity is relatively less beneficial.
Answer Choice (D) says that Wallakim would have a thriving population if the water were not acidic. That translates to /acidic → thriving. But that doesn’t fit what we’re looking for.
That means it’s the acidity in the water that’s causing the population to not be thriving.