PrepTest 103, Section 2, Question 15
Editorialist: Society is obliged to bestow the privileges(55 more words not shown)
The editorialist's argument is most(8 more words not shown)
- Aassumes what it(4 more words not shown)
- Btoo hastily reaches(10 more words not shown)
- Cequivocates with respect(4 more words not shown)
- Dtoo readily accepts(7 more words not shown)
- Eignores the fact(8 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
A fully developed body is not the same as readiness for adult responsibilities. The editorialist begins with a rule about responsibility: give people adult privileges once they are mature enough to accept the corresponding duties. Then the evidence switches to physiological development, meaning the body's physical development. Finishing that process does not, by itself, tell us whether someone can handle the duties.
Imagine a young person whose parents die and who takes on substantial responsibility for a younger sibling. Their body could still be developing while they are already carrying serious responsibilities. In the other direction, someone could be physically grown and still exercise poor judgment. The two kinds of maturity do not automatically line up.
What we’re looking for
The conclusion treats completion of the physical process as enough to satisfy the original responsibility requirement. That is the switch I want the flaw answer to describe. We can accept the stated age of physical development for this argument without accepting the move from physical maturity to readiness for every adult privilege.
Working the answers
- A
The argument does offer separate premises: a rule linking privileges to readiness for responsibilities, and a claim about physical development. It does not simply assume that seventeen-year-olds should receive the privileges. Its mistake is in treating the second premise as satisfying the first.
- B
No small collection of individual cases is used to establish a broad pattern. The passage gives a general claim about physical development in most people. We are questioning how that claim relates to responsibility, not the representativeness of a few examples.
- CCorrect
“Equivocates” means the argument shifts between meanings of an important term as though they were the same. Here, maturity first means being ready for adult responsibilities. Later, the completed “maturing process” refers to physiological development.
The evidence establishes physical maturity under the passage's assumptions. The conclusion treats that as the kind of maturity needed for the stated rule about privileges. Unless we connect those meanings, the argument has not established that the rule applies.
- D
We are not given a reason to think the cited science is an inappropriate authority about physical development. Even if that factual claim is completely accurate, the argument still needs to connect it to readiness for responsibilities. The error survives accepting the scientific premise, so attacking its authority misses the demonstrated problem.
- E
Development being completed by age seventeen leaves room for some people to complete it at sixteen or earlier. The passage does not say nobody matures before seventeen. More importantly, earlier physical maturity would leave the same question about readiness for adult responsibilities. It does not identify the shift in meaning.
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