PrepTest 106, Section 2, Question 4
Whittaker: There can be no such thing as(53 more words not shown)
Hudson responds to Whittaker(1 more words not shown)
- Ashowing that a(8 more words not shown)
- Bciting a specific(6 more words not shown)
- Cpointing out that(9 more words not shown)
- Dclaiming that what(13 more words not shown)
- Eshowing that Whittaker's(9 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
We know what it means to drop out before the second year: the student leaves before reaching the point when that year would begin. The student doesn't have to attend the second year for us to describe leaving before it.
Whittaker treats the fact that the year never happens as a reason the dropout count cannot exist. Hudson responds by taking that way of talking into a different situation. If an event that never happens cannot have anything happen before it, apparently Hudson cannot die before banking a first million dollars. Hudson presents becoming rich as an unavoidable result of that reasoning.
The comparison may initially feel odd because dying and leaving school aren't the same event. But they don't need to be. Dying corresponds to dropping out; banking the first million corresponds to reaching the second year. The relevant similarity is the later milestone that the person may never reach.
What we’re looking for
We're asked what Hudson does in response. Hudson uses Whittaker's pattern in another setting to produce an obviously unacceptable conclusion. That gives us a way to challenge the pattern itself.
Working the answers
- ACorrect
Hudson offers an analogous argument and shows where it leads: a supposed guarantee of becoming rich. “Untenable” means we cannot reasonably maintain that conclusion on this basis. A verbal maneuver about what happens “before” a milestone doesn't ensure that someone reaches the milestone.
The point is not that money and medical school are similar in every respect. Both arguments mishandle a reference to an event that might never happen. The wealth example exposes the problem by making the consequence of that reasoning easier to see.
- B
A direct counterexample would stay within Whittaker's claim, such as identifying a medical student who left during the first year and could therefore be counted among those who dropped out before the second. Hudson instead gives a different argument about wealth and death. It parallels the reasoning rather than citing a particular medical-school dropout.
- C
Hudson doesn't identify a situation Whittaker wrongly treats as merely possible when it is required. The response applies Whittaker's reasoning to a different milestone and displays the absurd result. The language about required and possible situations doesn't describe that method.
- D
Hudson says nothing about Whittaker's behavior. This would fit a reply accusing Whittaker of acting in a way inconsistent with the claim. Instead, Hudson discusses what the same reasoning would imply about Hudson's own future.
- E
Whittaker doesn't rely on one extreme medical-school case as if it represented everyone. The argument rests on a general claim about how to describe dropping out before a year that never occurs. Hudson challenges that reasoning, not the representativeness of a selected example.
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