LR Drill Set 1, Question 12
Felicia: One of the most reliable cars ever(44 more words not shown)
Which one of the following(12 more words not shown)
- Adrawing a general(12 more words not shown)
- Bdistorting the argument(9 more words not shown)
- Cattempting to establish(11 more words not shown)
- Dattacking the character(10 more words not shown)
- Emistaking a factor(13 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
One car isn't the whole model.
Felicia has good news about her own X500: ten years without a repair. But could she have an unusually dependable example of an otherwise troublesome model? Of course. Her experience alone doesn't establish that the X500 is one of the most reliable cars ever made.
Then Matt objects, and I want to hear better evidence.
Instead, he points to his aunt's car, which needs frequent repairs. He has the same problem. Perhaps that particular car is unusually unreliable. One troublesome car doesn't establish that the model is completely unreliable, just as one dependable car doesn't establish the opposite.
What we’re looking for
The question asks for the flaw both speakers commit. Their conclusions disagree, but their reasoning has the same shape: each takes one car's history and uses it to judge the entire model. We would need evidence broad enough to tell us whether either example is typical.
Working the answers
- ACorrect
Each speaker draws a general conclusion about the X500 from one particular example. Felicia uses her own reliable car; Matt uses his aunt's unreliable car. Their tiny samples leave open the possibility that each has encountered an exception. The opposing conclusions don't rescue the shared weakness in their support.
- B
Neither speaker rewrites the other's argument and then attacks the rewritten version. Matt disputes Felicia's conclusion, but his problem is the limited evidence he gives for his own. And Felicia speaks first without describing any opponent's argument at all. This doesn't identify a flaw both commit.
- C
Perhaps someone who sells X500s would have a financial reason to praise the model. But we aren't told that either speaker has such an interest or that personal gain motivates either argument. We shouldn't invent a motive when the evident problem is already in the reasoning: one example is being asked to support a model-wide conclusion.
- D
Matt challenges what Felicia says, not her honesty, intelligence, or character. Felicia doesn't attack Matt either. Disagreement can be direct without becoming a personal attack. The statements concern cars and their repair histories, so this description doesn't fit.
- E
Where is the proposed cause of reliability? Neither speaker identifies a mechanical feature, maintenance practice, or other factor and reverses its cause-and-effect relationship with reliability. They use repair histories as evidence about reliability. The mistake lies in how broadly they generalize from those histories.
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