PT121.S1.Q17 > Analytics

SECTION 1 · lr

Question 1 Question 2 Question 3 Question 4 Question 5 Question 6 Question 7 Question 8 Question 9 Question 10 Question 11 Question 12 Question 13 Question 14 Question 15 Question 16 Question 17 Question 18 Question 19 Question 20 Question 21 Question 22 Question 23 Question 24 Question 25 Question 26

SECTION 2 · rc

PASSAGE 1

Question 1 Question 2 Question 3 Question 4 Question 5

PASSAGE 2

Question 6 Question 7 Question 8 Question 9 Question 10 Question 11 Question 12

PASSAGE 3

Question 13 Question 14 Question 15 Question 16 Question 17 Question 18 Question 19

PASSAGE 4

Question 20 Question 21 Question 22 Question 23 Question 24 Question 25 Question 26 Question 27

SECTION 3 · rc

PASSAGE 1

Question 1 Question 2 Question 3 Question 4 Question 5

PASSAGE 2

Question 6 Question 7 Question 8 Question 9 Question 10 Question 11 Question 12

PASSAGE 3

Question 13 Question 14 Question 15 Question 16 Question 17 Question 18 Question 19

PASSAGE 4

Question 20 Question 21 Question 22 Question 23 Question 24 Question 25 Question 26 Question 27

SECTION 4 · lr

The author concludes that there are no endangered species of ants. Why? Because insects in general are so successful that they spread into virtually every ecosystem, and ants are the most successful insect.

This is the cookie-cutter flaw of confusing part v. whole. The author observes that the biological family of ants is successful, and concludes that every individual ant species must be successful.

But some qualities can be true of a whole without being true of every part, or vice versa. Ants in general could be very successful, but some species of ants could still be endangered.

The author doesn’t presume that either is isolated; they’re used to demonstrate wide geographic range (extreme north vs. extreme south).

The author says that insects are definitely not the kind of animals limited to small niches, so this can’t be the flaw.

This goes beyond what the argument states. The author says that two options for animal species are to go extinct or spread into virtually every ecosystem. He doesn’t indicate that those are the only two options.

This describes the part-to-whole flaw, but this is the reverse of what the author does. Instead, he commits a whole-to-part flaw; he attributes a property true of a whole (ants as a family) to each of its individual parts (individual species of ants).

This is the cookie-cutter whole-to-part flaw. The author takes for granted that a property true of a whole (ants as a whole are successful) is also true of the parts making up that whole (every individual ant species is successful). But that's flawed reasoning. Even if ants are generally successful, individual ant species could be endangered.

Question

76% of people who answer get this correct

This is a moderately difficult question.

CURVE

Score of students with a 50% chance of getting this right

25% 144

152

75% 161

Question Stem Tags

Flaw or descriptive weakening

Stimulus Tags

Part v. whole

Popularity Avg. score

157

151

158

11%

158

76%

165

You don't have any history with this question.. yet!

PrepTest 121 - Section 1 - Question 17

Difficulty

Analysis

Answer Popularity

Question history

Confirm action