Self-study
A controversial program rewards prison inmates who behave particularly well in prison by giving them the chance to receive free cosmetic plastic surgery performed by medical students. ███ ███████ ██ █████████ ███████ █████████████ ████ ██ ███ ███████████ █████ ████ ███████ █████ ████ ███ ██ ███ ███ ██ ███ ██████ ██████████ ██ █████ ██████ █████████ ███████ █████ █████ ██████ ██████ ████████ ███ ███████ ███████ ███ █ ████████ ██████████████ ███████ ██ ██ █████ ██ ███ ████ █████ █████ ██████████ ██ ███ ████████ ███ ██████████ ███ ███ █████████ ██ ███ ██████ █████████ █████ ███████ ██ ████ ████ ████ ███ ███ ██████ ██████████ ██ █ ██████
Objective: Find a Flaw
The stimulus describes a new program for prisoners: prisoners who behave especially well are offered free plastic surgery performed by med students. After touching on some moral issues, the author comes to the conclusion that this surgery is effective in rehabilitation. Why? Because those who receive surgery have only half the recidivism rate as the overall prison population.
Really focusing in on the author's conclusion and the direct support offered for it might make the flaw easier to spot. Setting aside the moral issue, the author is making a phenomenon-hypothesis argument, that a phenomenon of lower recidivism is caused by surgery offered only to especially well-behaved prisoners.
This is a great example of an un-ideal experiment—the author is drawing a conclusion about the effectiveness of an intervention, based on a sample that is not randomly selected and with no control group. This makes the conclusion unreliable: we can't tell whether the lower recidivism is actually because of the surgery, or because of the group's other features (like being especially well-behaved). In other words, the phenomenon could easily have an alternative explanation.
11.
A flaw in the reasoning ██ ███ ███████ ██ ████ ██
a
allows moral issues ██ ██ █ █████████████ ██ ██████████ ████████ █████ ███████ ██ ████
The author discusses moral issues, but ultimately sets them aside when discussing whether the surgery is effective, which is a question of fact. (A) isn't something that happens in the argument.
b
dismisses moral considerations ██ ███ ███████ ████ ████ ███████ ██ ████ ███ ████████
The author sets aside moral considerations when turning to the factual question of whether the surgery is effective at reducing recidivism. However, the author never states that only matters of fact are relevant to the overall issue—we don't know whether the author thinks the moral considerations are also important or not. (B) overstates what's going on in the argument.
Even if (B) were stated more precisely, it still wouldn't be a flaw. For the author's factual conclusion, it's true that factual evidence is what matters; moral issues don't make a difference to the factual effects of the surgery. Within the limited scope of the argument, it's not an flaw to set aside moral issues.
c
labels the program ██ ███████████████████ ███████ ██ ██████████ ███ ██████ ████ ████ ████ ██ ███████████
The author does discuss some of the issues that make the program controversial, when talking about how the program is "obviously morally questionable." (C) doesn't accurately describe the argument. And even if the author didn't discuss the moral issues, the program's controversy is part of the context, and not important to the core argument about the effects of the surgery.
d
asserts that the ██████████████ ██ █████████ ██ ███ █ █████ █████
The author never makes this assertion, so (D) can't be the flaw. The author discusses one question related to rehabilitation—whether the surgery is rehabilitative—without reference to morality, but that's not the same as saying that morality isn't relevant at all.
e
relies on evidence █████ ████ █ ██████ ████ █████ ██ ██████ ██ ███████ ██ ████████████████
The author relies on evidence drawn only from the sample of prisoners who were offered the surgery—in other words, prisoners who behaved especially well in prison. And that's a reason to think that the sample is unrepresentative: their good behavior in prison is probably related to their conduct after being released. And this gives us reason to doubt the conclusion, because the surgery may not be the true cause of these prisoners' low recidivism.