Self-study
It is easy to see that Conclusion the board of directors of the construction company is full of corruption and should be replaced. █████ ███ ████ █████████ ██ ███████ ██ ███████ ███████ ██ ███ █████ ██ █████ ██████ ███████ ████ ███ █ ██████ ██ ██████ ███████ █████ ██████ ████████████ ██████████ ███ ████████ ██ ██████████ ██████████
Summarize Argument
The author concludes that a company’s board of directors is corrupt and should be replaced. This is because one of the board members, Wagston, has people on his staff who engaged in bribery.
Identify and Describe Flaw
The argument concludes that the entire board of directors should be replaced even though the incriminating evidence only implicates certain members of Wagston’s staff. There may be support for the claim that those particular staff members are corrupt, but the argument never establishes that even Wagston himself is, let alone the entire board.
11.
The argument's reasoning is most ██████████ ██ █████████ ██ ███ ███████ ████
a
the argument fails ██ ████ ████ ██████████ ██ ███ ███████ ██ █████████ █████
This describes how the argument only offers evidence that certain staff members are corrupt, yet concludes that the entire board of directors should be replaced. There’s no evidence that anyone on the board is corrupt.
b
the argument fails ██ ████ ████ █████████ █████ ███████ ██ ███ ███████ █████ ████ ███████ ██ ██████████ █████████
This is irrelevant. Even if the staff members only bribed government officials, such actions would still provide evidence of corruption. The problem, however, is that this doesn’t prove that the board members are corrupt.
c
the argument fails ██ ███████ ███ ████████ ███████ ███████ ███ ██████████
The argument doesn’t fail to specify this relation since it says that the bribes “perniciously influenced the awarding of government contracts”. The issue is that this implicates certain staff members—not the board. Even if you think the argument is assuming that instances of bribery constitute corruption, (C) doesn't point this assumption out.
d
the argument presumes ███████ ██████ █████████████ ████ ███ ██ █████████ █████ ████ ███████ ██ ██████████
The argument doesn’t do this since it only says “various persons on the staff” engaged in bribery. Whether the entire staff engaged in corruption or not, there’s no evidence that their actions implicate the board members.
e
the argument attempts ██ ███████ █████████ ████ ████ ███████████ ██████ ██ █████████ ███ █████████ ██ ███ █████
The author accuses the board members of corruption, so the character of the board is itself a substantive issue for the argument. The author also points out that certain bribes perniciously influenced the awarding of contracts, which is a substantive issue.