PT142.S2.Q1 > Question

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

SECTION 2 · lr

SECTION 3 · rc

PASSAGE 1

Question 1 Question 2 Question 3 Question 4 Question 5 Question 6 Question 7 Question 8

PASSAGE 2

Question 9 Question 10 Question 11 Question 12 Question 13 Question 14 Question 15 Question 16

PASSAGE 3

Question 17 Question 18 Question 19 Question 20 Question 21

PASSAGE 4

Question 22 Question 23 Question 24 Question 25 Question 26 Question 27

SECTION 4 · lr

Mary concludes that Jamal’s statements are absurd when taken together because he claims that she has the legal right to sell her business, but that she has no right to do so because employees will suffer.

Mary’s reasoning is vulnerable to criticism because she overlooks the possibility that Jamal is using two different senses of the word “right.” When he says she has the legal right to sell the business, he means it in a legal sense. But when he says she has "no right" to sell it, he’s referring to a moral right, suggesting that selling the business wouldn't be the right thing to do. Because of this, his argument isn’t actually contradictory or absurd.

Even if Jamal does mean that Mary has no moral right to sell the business at this time, it wouldn't weaken the claim that his statements taken together are absurd. He’s still claiming that she has the right to sell anytime, but no right to sell at this time.

The argument is only addressing Mary’s rights. But even if her employees do have rights related to the sale of the business, it wouldn’t impact Mary’s conclusion that Jamal’s statements are absurd because they’re contradictory.

Mary actually does provide evidence to support the claim that she has a legal right to sell the business— the fact that she’s its legitimate owner.

If Jamal is referring to a legal right in one statement and a moral right in the other, then his statements are not actually absurd when taken together. Mary can have the legal right to sell even though selling is not the right thing to do.

This the cookie-cutter “ad hominem” flaw, where the author attacks the source of an argument rather than the argument itself. Mary doesn’t make this mistake. She claims that Jamal’s statements are absurd when taken together, not that Jamal himself is absurd.

PrepTest 142 - Section 2 - Question 1

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