PrepTest 113, Section 3, Question 9
As part of a survey, approximately 10,000 randomly(74 more words not shown)
The argument above is vulnerable(8 more words not shown)
- Aoffers no evidence(21 more words not shown)
- Bfails to specify(13 more words not shown)
- Cassumes without warrant(12 more words not shown)
- Dassumes from the(15 more words not shown)
- Eprovides no reason(23 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
Were today's older respondents more willing to talk about money when they were young? This survey doesn't tell us.
At first, I'd wonder who agrees to answer a call about income and savings. People with different financial situations might respond differently. But the reported result concerns age, and the conclusion makes a particular move: from comparing younger and older people now to describing how a person's willingness changes over time.
Those could be different stories. Perhaps an older generation grew up treating money as especially private and has felt that way throughout adulthood. Perhaps a younger generation is more open and will remain so as it ages. These possibilities fit the survey's age pattern without making aging itself the source of the difference.
What we’re looking for
Imagine asking the same people at 20, 30, 40, 50, and 60. That would let us look at changes in their responses, rather than comparing people from different generations once. We don't have that information here. For the flaw question, I'd look for the missing connection between the survey's comparison and the claimed change as people get older.
Working the answers
- ACorrect
The survey doesn't show how these individuals would have answered the same questions earlier in their lives. That is the gap we noticed. Comparing older respondents with younger respondents now doesn't establish that the older ones were more willing to answer when they were young.
A generational difference could produce the observed pattern even if each group's willingness stayed much the same over time. The argument needs more than this one-time comparison to establish its conclusion about people at different ages.
- B
Knowing whether the survey reached exactly 10,000 people or, say, 10,100 wouldn't fix the comparison. Either number could leave us with different generations observed at one time. Approximation in the sample count isn't the reasoning problem here.
- C
The argument doesn't claim that age determines income or savings. It concerns willingness to discuss those subjects. A person's finances and willingness to reveal them are different matters. C attacks a claim about how much money people have that the author never makes.
- D
The author offers the observed survey pattern as evidence for a broader conclusion. The problem is that this evidence doesn't establish the change over a lifetime, not that the conclusion has already been assumed as a premise.
- E
The conclusion explicitly says 'in general.' It doesn't say every older person is unwilling to talk, or that every individual becomes less willing with age. Some exceptions could exist even if the general claim were true.
The problem isn't a failure to prove a rule for absolutely everyone. It's the lack of evidence that the age-group pattern reflects people changing as they get older. E challenges a stronger claim than the author makes and misses that central comparison.
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