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Explanations

PT144.S2.Q22

SECTION 1 · rc

PASSAGE 1
Question 1 Question 2 Question 3 Question 4 Question 5 Question 6

PASSAGE 2
Question 7 Question 8 Question 9 Question 10 Question 11 Question 12 Question 13

PASSAGE 3
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 2 · 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 3 · 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 4 · 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

PrepTest 144 - Section 2 - Question 22

Question

Explanation

Analytics

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A tax preparation company automatically adds the following disclaimer to every e-mail message sent to its clients: "Any tax advice in this e-mail should not be construed as advocating any violation of the provisions of the tax code." Support The only purpose this disclaimer could serve is to provide legal protection for the company. ███ ██ ███ ██████ █████████ ████████ ████ ███ ██████ ██ █████████ ████████ ████ ███ ██████████ ██████ ██ █████ ███████████ ██ ███ ██████████ ██████ ██ ████████

Summary

The author concludes that the e-mail disclaimer serves no purpose. This is based on the following:

The only purpose of the disclaimer is to provide legal protection for the company.

If the e-mail in which the disclaimer appears suggests that the client do something illegal, then the disclaimer offers no legal protection.

Missing Connection

We know that if the e-mail suggests that people do something illegal, the disclaimer won’t serve its purpose. But what if the e-mail does NOT suggest that people do something illegal? Couldn’t the disclaimer still serve a purpose in this situation? To make the argument valid, we want to establish that if the e-mail doesn’t suggest doing something illegal, the disclaimer still doesn’t serve the purpose of providing legal protection.

Analysis by Kevin_Lin

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22.

The argument's conclusion can be ████████ █████ ██ █████ ███ ██ ███ █████████ ██ ████████

If the e-mail ████ ███ █████████ ███████ ████ ███ ██████ ██ ████████ ████████ ████ ███ ███████ ████ ███ ████ █████ ███████████

(E) provides the missing half of the argument. So whether the e-mail does or does not suggest to do something illegal, the e-mail doesn’t serve a purpose. Either the e-mail doesn’t offer legal protection, or the company doesn’t need legal protection.

If e-mail messages ████ ██ ███ ███ ███████████ ███████ ██ █████████ ███████ ████ ███ █████████ ██ █████████ ████████ ████ ███ ███████ █████ ██ ███████ ██ ███████████ ██████████

(B) doesn’t tell us what happens if the e-mail does not suggest that people should do something illegal. So we don’t know whether the disclaimer might be able to serve a purpose in that situation.

A disclaimer that ██ ████████ ██ █████ ██████ ███████ ████ ██ █ ███████ ████ ████ ██ ██ ███████ ██ ██████████ ███ ████ ███████ ████████ ████ ███████ ████ ████ ████████

(C) establishes that people might end up ignoring the disclaimer. But this doesn’t prove that the disclaimer serves no purpose when the e-mail doesn’t suggest doing something illegal. The disclaimer might still serve its purpose in that situation, even if there’s a potential people will ignore the disclaimer.

At least some ██ ███ ██████████ ██ ███ █████████ ███████ ████ ██████ ███ ██████ █████████ ██ ███ ████ ██ ██ █████ ████ ██ ███ ███████ ████ ████████

This doesn’t establish that the disclaimer serves no purpose if the e-mail doesn’t suggest that clients do something illegal. We already know that the disclaimer serves no purpose if the e-mail suggests something illegal. What matters is what happens if the e-mail doesn’t suggest something illegal.

Some of the ███ ███████████ █████████ ███████ █████ ███ ██ █████████ █████ █████████ ██ ████ ████ ███ ██ ██ ███

Difficulty

Question

61% of people who answer get this correct

This is a difficult question.

CURVE

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

25% 147

159

75% 171

Analysis

Question Stem Tags

Sufficient assumption

Stems that ask us to provide an additional piece of information that, if true, would make the argument in the stimulus completely valid. Learn more.

Stimulus Tags

Conditional reasoning

Stimuli that feature conditional and set logic (e.g. A → B, A is true, therefore B is true). Learn more.

Diagram?

Diagramming the logic is likely helpful (but not necessary) to solve the problem.

Link assumption

Arguments that feature an unjustified shift from one concept to another, which don't fit neatly into other common flaw categories (e.g. moving from premises about "houses" to a conclusion about "dwellings"). Learn more.

Answer Popularity

Popularity Avg. score

61%

166

21%

161

155

13%

161

160

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