LR Drill Set 4, Question 3
Real estate agent to client: You should buy(52 more words not shown)
The reasoning of the real(8 more words not shown)
- Apresumes, without providing(17 more words not shown)
- Billicitly appeals to(7 more words not shown)
- Cillicitly employs two(6 more words not shown)
- Dconsiders only one(11 more words not shown)
- Efails to consider(28 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
What about a house somewhere in the middle?
The agent has given us reasons to avoid a badly run-down bargain. If I don't have the time or skill to repair it, and repairs would be expensive, buying that house could be a bad decision. Let's grant all of that. Why does it mean I should spend the most I possibly can?
Maybe a moderately priced house needs no major repairs and suits me perfectly. That possibility survives everything the agent says. Showing that the cheapest house is unsuitable doesn't eliminate all the other houses below my maximum budget.
I might also wonder whether the agent benefits from a higher sale price, or whether spending my entire budget leaves me room for unexpected expenses. Those are reasonable concerns to investigate, but the argument already has a problem we can identify from its own reasoning: it rejects one alternative and acts as though the favored option is all that's left.
What we’re looking for
The flaw question should describe those missing alternatives. We don't need a technical name for the mistake. We need an answer that captures why “don't buy the cheapest” falls short of “buy the most expensive you can afford.”
Working the answers
- A
The agent says this particular client lacks the time and expertise. That's different from claiming that nobody buying a house can make repairs. Other buyers might be skilled builders with plenty of time, and the agent's statement about this client could still be true. A turns a claim about one person into a claim about everyone.
- B
The argument mentions practical problems with repairs. It doesn't appeal to embarrassment, status, or fear of what the neighbors will think. An argument like “Buy an expensive house or everyone will think you're a failure” would fit that description much better. We shouldn't add that emotional pressure to the agent's actual words.
- C
“Cheapest” means lowest in price here. The agent doesn't slide from that meaning into, for example, “stingy.” A word having several possible meanings isn't itself a flaw. The reasoning would have to use different meanings as though they were the same, and that doesn't happen here.
- DCorrect
The supported option is the most expensive affordable house. The one alternative considered is the cheapest house plus repairs. Moderately priced houses are left out. One of those could avoid the repair problems without requiring the client to spend the maximum amount. D captures the gap between rejecting one option and establishing another.
- E
This can sound relevant because the argument mentions repair costs. Maybe the cheap house would still cost less after repairs. But the agent also says the client lacks the time and expertise to do that work. A lower total price doesn't remove those other objections. E contests one aspect of the rejected option; D identifies why even rejecting that option altogether fails to justify the recommendation. There are still other houses to consider.
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