Everything in (A) is solid except “impractical to determine which cases it covers.” A stimulus where (A) is right would present an example in which it’s hard to tell whether or not some being counts as intelligent according to the definition. Like “Check out this monkey – does it meet both the conditions? I dunno! The terms are too vague.”

Our stimulus offers an example where we for sure know the definition ought to cover this case (but it doesn’t).

This argument does indeed use a hypothetical application of a definition to argue that the definition would have unacceptably counterintuitive consequences.

Let’s break down what it means for something to have “counterintuitive consequences.” You can think of “counterintuitive” in two parts – start with a core intuition, and then counter that intuition.

So like a light switch. Up is ON, right? And down is OFF. When a light switch works that way, we call it “intuitive” design. It matches our intuition about how light switches work.

A counterintuitive light switch would work the other way – up is OFF, down is ON.

In this question, the intuition we all (supposedly) share is that this hypothetical being has intelligence. Like hey imagine this hypothetical being – seems intelligent, right? And then the author expects us all to nod and be like “yes definitely feels intelligent to me.”

But one consequence of the Cog Psych’s definition is that this being isn’t intelligent because it fails to meet one of the definition’s criteria (figuring stuff out because you want to overcome obstacles). That runs counter to our (supposed) intuition that the being should be considered intelligent.

Imagine I tried to define “dog” to you as “four-legged creature with a tail.” You might respond by pointing to a cat and saying “so that’s a dog then, right?” That would be you revealing that my definition has counterintuitive consequences.

Anyway, this argument lays out a definition, presents a hypothetical scenario in which that definition gives the intuitively wrong answer, and concludes it’s a bad definition.

Extra Credit – Appeals to Intuition
Diving one step deeper because this will be important in your legal career, appealing to intuition is perfectly acceptable and quite common, but it has limitations. Appeals to intuition can be exceptionally powerful when your audience happens to share that intuition, but fall completely flat if your audience does not. Darth Vader appealed to Luke’s intuition when he said “Search your feelings, you know it to be true.” That blew Luke’s mind because he searched his feelings and knew it to be true. It matched his intuition. But imagine if Luke searched his feelings and was like “nah actually I kinda don’t think it’s true.”

(C) and (D) are the answer choices that really demand a precise, thorough understanding of the argument’s structure.

(C) says our author’s complaint is that the definition isn’t narrow enough, but our author’s actual complaint is that the definition is too narrow.

The given example is a case that should count as intelligent but doesn’t under the definition. The cog psych needs to broaden the scope of their definition, not make it narrower.

Aside from that, (C) also says the definition isn’t narrow enough to be applied, which goes a bit far. We can apply the definition just fine, it’s just yields bad results when we do.

(D) does the same thing as (C), painting the definition as too broad when in fact the definition is too narrow. Everything else is spot on.

Per our argument, if the cog psych’s definition is correct, intelligence would fail to apply to things to which it normally does apply. Regarding this being who understands how things work, the definition says it shouldn’t count as intelligent, but our author says it should.

(E) points to a common flaw – the inappropriate appeal to authority. Or rather, (E) says our author is pointing to that common flaw.

Just like the wrong answers to Flaw questions often cleanly point to common flaws that aren’t the one featured in the stimulus, wrong answers to Method of Reasoning questions often point to common argument structures that aren’t the one featured in the stimulus. That’s what’s happening here.

But, you know, that’s just not what the author is doing here. Appealing to the wrong authority is saying “I know the moon landing is fake because Steph Curry said so.”* For (E) to be right, our author would have to accuse the cog psych of doing that, which…where?

*That’s a real thing that happened. Fortunately, Steph Curry later clarified that he was joking, retracted his statements, and toured a NASA facility where he held some dope moon rocks.