Support The dean of computing must be respected by the academic staff and be competent to oversee the use of computers on campus. ███ ████ █████ ████ █████████ ███████ ███ █████ ███ ████ ████████ ████████ ███ ████ ███████ ███ ██████ █████ █████ █████████ ███ ███████████ ███████ ███ ███ ██ █████████ ██ ███████ ████████████ ███ █████ ██ ████████ ███ ███████ ████ ███ ████ ██ █████████ ████ ██ ████████ ████ █████ ████ ██████████████ ██████ ██████████ ███ ████ ██ █████████ ████ ██ █ █████████ ████ ████ ██████████████ ████████ ███████ ███████████
This argument establishes five requirements to be the dean of computing, then concludes that the only candidates with a chance to fulfill these requirements are professors in the CS department. Here’s the argument distilled through that lens:
Premises: The dean of computing needs to berespected (which requires adoctoral degree ), andcompetent (which requiresknowledge of computers ), andpart of the university’s staff .
________
Conclusion: The dean of computing must be a professor from the CS department.
That’s 5 requirements. Fail to meet any of these standards and you’re disqualified from being the dean of computing.
Many necessary assumption questions, Q13 included, are open to a pretty simple strategy: isolate a concept that appears in the conclusion and nowhere else, then anticipate that the assumption is something like “[the concepts in the premises] are related to [the concept in the conclusion].”
Here’s the argument distilled through that lens:
Premises: [To be the dean of computing, there are like 1000 requirements. None of those mention being a professor in the CS department, though.]
________
Conclusion: The dean of computing must be a professor from the CS department.
And now the anticipation:
The only people who can fulfill [these various requirements] are professors from the CS department.
This strategy isn’t foolproof – there are often tons of other ways to poke holes in the argument, any of which would qualify as a right answer if the testwriters wanted to be tricky. Quite often, though, you can save a lot of time by hunting for an answer choice that fits your anticipation, finding it, and moving on without agonizing too much about the other options.
Which one of the following ███████████ ██ █████ █████ ██████ ███ █████████
There are members ██ ████ ██████████████ █████ ███ ████ ████████ ███████ ███ ███ ███ ███ ██████████ ███ ███ ██████ ████ █████ ██████████
The argument’s conclusion says “only people in this pool (professors in the CS department) can qualify to be dean of computing.” (A) says “but look at these people who aren’t in that pool (not professors) – they fulfill some of the requirements to be dean of computing (staff and degree and knowledge of computers).”
It’s worth noting that the people (A) mentions don’t fulfill all the requirements. To weaken the argument, they don’t have to. The argument’s conclusion guarantees that only professors in the CS department could possibly qualify. (A) gives us cause to question that: these staff members who hold doctorates and know about computers deserve a closer look before writing them off.
There are members ██ ████ ██████████████ ██████████ ██████████ ███ ██ ███ ████ ████████ ███████ ███ ███ ██████ ████ █████ ██████████
Anyone who doesn’t hold a doctorate degree is disqualified from being dean.
Computer science professors ███ ████ ████████ ███████ ███ ███ ███ ███ ███████ ██ ████ ██████████████ █████ ████ ███████ ███ ███ ████████ ██ ████ ██ ██████████
Anyone who isn’t a member of this university’s staff is disqualified from being dean.
Several members of ███ █████ ██ ████████ ██ ████ ██████████ ██ ███ ████ ████████ ████████
Qualifications for the board of trustees are irrelevant to the qualifications for becoming dean of computing.
Some members of ███ ████████ ███████ ██████████ ██ ████ ██████████ ███ ███ █████████ ██ █████████ ██ █████ ████████████
We can criticize (E) through a sufficiency/necessity lens: the argument’s conclusion is that only professors in the CS department could possibly qualify, not that every professor in the CS department qualifies.
It’s okay if some of the professors in the CS department fail to meet all the requirements.
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