PrepTest 115, Section 2, Question 18
All historians are able to spot trends.(28 more words not shown)
The flawed reasoning in which(13 more words not shown)
- AAll expressions used(29 more words not shown)
- BPolitical systems whose(29 more words not shown)
- CAnimals that possess(44 more words not shown)
- DNo one without(28 more words not shown)
- EPeople living in(40 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
A historian can make those distinctions. That doesn't make everyone who can make them a historian. Someone could tell an important event from an unimportant one without ever studying history professionally.
Follow the two facts forward. Historians can spot trends. People who can spot trends can distinguish the significant from the insignificant. So historians can make that distinction. The conclusion starts at the other end and claims that everyone with the final ability belongs to the original group. Nothing says historians are the only people with it.
We need another argument that makes this same mistake through a chain of two facts. Give each role a concrete meaning: historians are the starting group, spotting trends is the middle link, and making the distinction is the final property. The bad conclusion takes the final property back to the starting group.
What we’re looking for
The order of the sentences doesn't have to match. What matters is whether the relationships connect in the same way. If the choices feel tangled, ask what each statement actually tells us rather than trying to match the first noun in each sentence.
Working the answers
- ACorrect
Figures of speech are the starting group, corresponding to historians. They are used for emotional impact, the middle link corresponding to spotting trends. Expressions used for emotional impact are used by poets, the final property corresponding to distinguishing the significant from the insignificant. The premises are presented in a different order, but they still form the same chain.
What follows is that figures of speech are used by poets. Instead, A says that any expression used by poets is a figure of speech. Why couldn't a poet also use a plain, literal expression? Just as the original wrongly treats historians as the only people with the final ability, A treats figures of speech as the only expressions poets use.
- B
This follows from elected legislatures through factionalism toward civil disorder. It doesn't start with civil disorder and work backward to elected legislatures. Its problem is introducing systems not run by autocrats in place of systems with laws originating in elected legislatures, without showing those groups are the same. That is a different gap.
- C
Horns or antlers identify animals that fight within their species and lack the equipment associated with predators. The conclusion then covers every animal that fights within its species. The problem is that animals without horns or antlers might fight that way too. This starts with one group and gives it two features, then links those features to each other. It doesn't give the original's chain of two links and reverse the entire chain.
- D
Blues musicians must want to communicate, and short-story writers share that desire. But sharing a required quality doesn't establish that the writers could become musicians; they could lack musical ability. Here two groups share one quality. We don't have the original chain leading from a starting group through a middle link to a final property.
- E
Having customs partly shaped by an unchosen past doesn't settle how free people are now. People might freely choose whether to retain those customs. The argument moves from the origins of customs to a judgment about people's freedom, rather than running backward through a chain of group relationships.
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