PrepTest 101, Section 3, Question 2
Advertisement: Anyone who thinks moisturizers are not important(64 more words not shown)
The Dewyfresh advertisement exhibits which(7 more words not shown)
- AIt treats something(22 more words not shown)
- BIt treats the(22 more words not shown)
- CIt overlooks the(17 more words not shown)
- DIt relies on(18 more words not shown)
- EIt relies on(26 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
Your skin isn't dirt. Calling the ground “the skin of the world” makes a vivid picture, but does it give us a good reason to believe this moisturizer will protect human skin?
I can picture the drought the advertiser describes: dry ground becomes cracked and loses its lush appearance. Let's accept that description. To carry the lesson over to people, though, we need a reason to think human skin responds to moisture in the relevant way. The fact that both can be described as surfaces doesn't establish that what happens to one tells us what will happen to the other.
Maybe moisturizing really does help human skin. We don't have to deny that to question the advertisement. Imagine learning that adding water improves the appearance of soil, then using that alone to recommend a particular skin product. We'd still want to know how the product affects skin. The comparison has skipped the very connection that would make it useful.
What we’re looking for
For the flaw, I'd look for an inadequately supported analogy. The problem isn't that analogies must compare identical things; if that were required, we could never learn from a comparison. The two things need to be alike in the respects that matter to the conclusion. Here, the ad hasn't established the relevant similarity in their response to moisture.
Working the answers
- A
The ad does describe moisture as something the ground needs. But it doesn't simply conclude that moisture alone guarantees every aspect of beautiful skin. Its central move is to transfer a lesson about the ground to human skin. That unsupported comparison is different from turning one requirement into a complete guarantee.
- B
This would involve observing two things together and claiming that a third thing caused both. The ad doesn't propose a common cause of two observed patterns. It describes dry ground, then draws a lesson for human skin. B doesn't describe that move.
- C
Persuading someone that a product works wouldn't make it work. But the ad doesn't offer people's changed beliefs as the mechanism that protects their skin. It offers the moisturizer and tries to support that recommendation with the earth comparison. C attacks reasoning the advertisement never uses.
- D
An infusion can mean adding something or the result of adding it. That distinction isn't doing the argumentative work here. In both parts of the comparison, the idea is supplying moisture. Nothing in the conclusion depends on quietly switching between a process and its product.
- ECorrect
The comparison needs support at the point that matters: why should the ground's response to drought establish what human skin needs or what Dewyfresh will do for it? The advertiser hasn't supplied that connection. A memorable phrase about the earth's skin doesn't make soil and human skin interchangeable for this purpose. The analogy therefore fails to establish the recommendation, even if the recommendation could be supported by other evidence.
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