PrepTest 105, Section 4, Question 23
Donna claims to have found the museum's current(50 more words not shown)
Which one of the following(16 more words not shown)
- AAlice claims to(28 more words not shown)
- BMorris claims to(39 more words not shown)
- CDenise claims to(28 more words not shown)
- DLoren claims to(33 more words not shown)
- EDouglas claims to(33 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
Donna found the exhibition less interesting than many recent ones. The critics rank it above every exhibition the museum has put on in years. There is a disagreement here, but why does the author immediately declare Donna's claim false?
My first objection is that the argument simply favors the critics. Donna gives one assessment, the critics give another, and the author treats the critics as decisive. I want a reason that their assessment settles Donna's claim.
What we’re looking for
For this parallel-flaw question, my starting prediction is an argument in which one person makes a claim, other people make a conflicting claim, and the first person is declared wrong. That's broad, so I'll use it to find candidates and then compare their details. Matching that general pattern may not be enough.
Working the answers
- A
This initially looks promising: Alice says her assignment is complete, her supervisor says it isn't, and the argument rejects Alice's claim. It matches the broad pattern I predicted.
But keep it alongside D rather than stopping here. Whether a particular assignment is complete is a factual question. Donna's claim reports what she personally found interesting. That difference becomes crucial when we compare the two candidates: another person's assessment can bear directly on whether work is done without settling what someone else enjoyed.
- B
This introduces a factual timing conflict. The reports date the fire to 1982, and Morris was out of the country for that entire year. The argument uses those circumstances to reject his claim of witnessing the fire. The original gives no comparable fact placing Donna away from the exhibition. It uses others' assessment of the exhibition to reject her reported reaction.
- C
Denise and Albert could both be telling the truth. Each could have attended to please the other. More importantly, they are making claims about different people's motives: Denise's motive and Albert's motive. To match even our broad prediction, Albert would need to challenge Denise's claim about why she went. His statement about his own reason doesn't do that.
- DCorrect
Here is the detail that improves our initial prediction: the claim is about a person's own taste. Loren likes the fish, just as Donna found the exhibition less interesting. Food experts dislike the fish, just as the critics favor the exhibition. In each argument, the experts' assessment is wrongly treated as refuting the individual's personal response.
Everyone else could find the fish dreadful while Loren sincerely enjoys it. Likewise, the critics could love the exhibition while Donna finds it less interesting than earlier ones. The point isn't that one person's taste is better. Their different reactions can coexist. That's why D matches the flaw more closely than A.
- E
The atlas supplies a factual comparison: two mountains are taller than the one Douglas climbed. If that comparison is accurate, he didn't climb the tallest mountain. A mountain's height relative to others isn't a report of Douglas's personal enjoyment or preference. This misses the feature that makes the critics' response to Donna inadequate.
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