PrepTest 110, Section 2, Question 3
Restaurant manager: In response to requests from our(55 more words not shown)
Which one of the following(10 more words not shown)
- Aconcluding that two(11 more words not shown)
- Bdrawing a conclusion(9 more words not shown)
- Cignoring possible differences(11 more words not shown)
- Dattempting to prove(18 more words not shown)
- Etreating one of(11 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
Maybe it's the cheese.
Nobody orders the potatoes baked with cheese, but the manager blames the potatoes. What if customers would happily eat potatoes prepared another way and simply don't want cheese? Someone avoiding cheese could reject this dish without having any objection to potatoes themselves.
There are other possibilities too. A diner might like potatoes but prefer the eggplant casserole when eating at this restaurant. Or the potato dish might seem less appealing than the other options for some reason besides its main ingredient. Its lower price doesn't settle that. Being the cheapest dish doesn't guarantee that people want it most.
What we’re looking for
The flaw question asks what went wrong in the manager's explanation. I'd say the manager has picked one possible reason for the empty order count and treated it as established. We know this dish isn't ordered. We don't yet know which feature of the dish, or of the alternatives, explains that result.
Working the answers
- A
The manager isn't identifying two simultaneous events and assigning them a common cause. The argument explains the lack of orders by attributing a preference to the customers. Its error is choosing that explanation without ruling out alternatives, not reasoning that two events must share a cause.
- B
The conclusion could be true alongside all the premises. Customers might dislike potatoes, and no one might order the potato dish. The problem is that the facts also fit other explanations. A claim can be unsupported without contradicting the evidence offered for it.
- C
The passage does tell us what customers requested: vegetarian main dishes. But it also says they frequently order two of the new vegetarian dishes. The manager isn't assuming everyone will order whatever they say they want. The conclusion is drawn from their actual failure to order one particular dish. C doesn't explain why that observation fails to establish an aversion to potatoes.
- D
There is no appeal to a group of people who believe that the customers dislike potatoes. The evidence is the pattern of orders, not a vote on the truth of the manager's claim. D describes a different kind of support.
- ECorrect
Disliking potatoes is one possible explanation. Disliking the cheese, preferring the casserole, or finding this particular preparation unappealing are other possibilities. The manager hasn't shown why the first explanation is the one we should accept.
Notice that we don't have to prove the customers love potatoes. We only need to see that the same lack of orders could occur even if they were willing to eat potatoes in another dish. That is enough to expose the unsupported leap.
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