Self-study
Interviewer: A certain company released a model of computer whose microprocessor design was flawed, making that computer liable to process information incorrectly. ███ ███ ████ ███████
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Summarize Argument
The industry spokesperson concludes that there is no future risk of design flaws in microprocessors. This is because all microprocessors are now designed by computers. The design flaw cited by the interviewer resulted from the impossibility of manually checking every one of the microprocessor’s circuits. Now that a computer will design microprocessors, the spokesperson thinks there won't be any more microprocessor design flaws.
Identify and Describe Flaw
The spokesperson concedes that a prior microprocessor design flaw resulted from the fact that not every circuit can be manually checked before a computer model is released. This made the computer liable to process information incorrectly. Why, then, should we believe that a computer-designed microprocessor cannot have any design flaws? Couldn't the computers that design the microprocessors have their own flaws, which might lead to errors in the way they design microprocessors?
20.
The industry spokesperson's argument is ████ ██████████ ██ █████████ ██ ███ ███████ ████ ██
a
presumes, without providing ██████████████ ████ ███ ██████████████ ███████████████ ██████████ ██ ███ ███████ █████████ ███ ███ ██████████████ ██ █████ ████████ ██████████ ███ ████████
The spokesperson doesn’t make a distinction between the company mentioned and the industry as a whole. Instead, the argument just says that all new processors are designed with computers.
b
ignores the possibility ████ █ ██████████████ ███ ████ █ ████ █████ ████ █ ██████ ████
Similar to (C), other potential flaws are irrelevant. The conclusion is limited to microprocessor design flaws.
c
overlooks the possibility ████ █ ███ ████████ █████ ██ ██████ ██ ███████████ ███ ███████ █████ ████ █ ██████████████ ████
Similar to (B), other causes for malfunction are irrelevant. The conclusion is focused only on microprocessor design flaws.
d
treats a single ████████ ██ █ ██████████████ ██████ ████ ██ ████████ ████ █████ ████ ██ ████ ████ █████
The spokesperson claims that there will **not** be future design flaws. So the spokesperson isn't assuming one microprocessor design flaw is evidence of many other design flaws.
e
takes for granted, ███████ ████████ ██ ███ █████████ ████ ████ █████████ ███ ███ ██████ ██ █████
We have evidence that computers can make errors; as the spokesperson admits, there was a computer liable to process information incorrectly because not all of its circuits could be checked manually. Despite this evidence, the spokesperson assumes that the computers that design the new microprocessors cannot make any design flaws in those microprocessors.