PrepTest 106, Section 2, Question 20

What we’re looking for

Working the answers

• A

  Albert reports discovering the keys in a specific place. That directly bears on whether he knows where they are, which is what his father denies. The argument isn't relying on Albert's unrelated distinction or intellectual brilliance.

  Albert could be mistaken or dishonest, but that general possibility doesn't make this the same flaw. His stated basis concerns his own discovery, rather than expertise in a different field being used to override the report.

• B

  Gloria has direct knowledge of whether she was offered an acting opportunity. That makes her report relevant to the teacher's claimed policy of giving every student an opportunity.

  This can be tempting because one person's report is used against another person's claim. But the original problem isn't simply relying on anyone's testimony. It is relying on credentials that don't establish the speaker's basis for this judgment. Gloria's participation gives her firsthand access to the matter at issue.

• C

  A cardiopulmonary specialist has expertise directly related to human breathing and its limits. That is relevant to Amos's claim about holding his breath underwater for an hour.

  Appealing to an expert is not automatically the original flaw. We would need the expertise to be disconnected from the disputed subject. Armand's mathematical distinction doesn't establish knowledge of the program's success; the doctor's stated specialty does bear on the physiological claim here.

• D

  This gives a different, specific reasoning error. If Robert is right about the late arrival, Evelyn could not have heard the late news. But she might also have arrived early and simply chosen not to listen. Her admission that she missed the news doesn't establish Robert's account of when she arrived.

  Knowing the time doesn't fix that inference. The argument treats an outcome compatible with Robert being right as proof that he is right. That differs from rejecting the land figures solely on the strength of an expert's unrelated credentials.

• E
  Correct

  Moira's eyewitness report corresponds to the ministry's report. Lomas's bicycle-engineering expertise corresponds to Armand's mathematical distinction. Each argument treats the expert's insistence that the reported result is impossible as enough to reject the report.

  Knowing how bicycles are engineered doesn't by itself tell Lomas who won this particular race or make him an authority on whether Lee could beat Adams. We aren't given race evidence that justifies overriding Moira's observation. The argument lets an impressive credential do work that the stated expertise doesn't support.