PrepTest 116, Section 3, Question 20
Interviewer: A certain company released a model of(83 more words not shown)
The industry spokesperson's argument is(9 more words not shown)
- Apresumes, without providing(19 more words not shown)
- Bignores the possibility(12 more words not shown)
- Coverlooks the possibility(16 more words not shown)
- Dtreats a single(15 more words not shown)
- Etakes for granted,(13 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
Couldn't the computer doing the designing make a mistake too?
The spokesperson's first response explains how a flaw might escape a manual check: there are too many circuits to inspect every one. I can follow that explanation. But when asked for a guarantee, the spokesperson jumps to something much stronger. Computer design supposedly means there is no chance of another design flaw.
Why would that change make the process perfect? The conversation began with a computer liable to process information incorrectly. Now we're supposed to trust computer processing to eliminate all design errors. Perhaps the computers used for design are better, but simply saying a computer designed something doesn't establish that it was designed without error.
What we’re looking for
For the flaw question, I want that unsupported leap from computer-designed to flawless. The spokesperson needs a reason to trust the design process that completely. We're not being given one.
Working the answers
- A
The spokesperson doesn't claim that this company's quality controls are unusually bad compared with the industry's. The proposed reassurance applies to all microprocessors because they are now computer-designed. Whether the company was representative doesn't establish that computer design removes every chance of error.
- B
The guarantee concerns design flaws. A microprocessor might have another kind of defect, but that wouldn't by itself refute the claim that its design is flawless. B raises a problem outside the specific claim we're evaluating.
- C
A computer could malfunction because someone spills water on it. That would be a problem, but it wouldn't show that its microprocessor design was flawed. The spokesperson hasn't promised that computers can never malfunction for any reason. C broadens the claim beyond the guarantee actually offered.
- D
The spokesperson predicts no further design flaws, not many. And the interviewer asks what guarantee exists; asking that question isn't the same as concluding that many flaws will occur. D doesn't describe the argument made by either speaker.
- ECorrect
The spokesperson treats the computers used for design as unable to make the relevant mistakes. Yet the discussion has already provided an example of computers that can process information incorrectly. Computer processing isn't automatically reliable just because it is done by a computer.
We don't have to assume the company uses the very machines known to be defective to design new chips. Nor does one flawed model prove every computer will err. The problem is that the spokesperson offers no basis for treating the design computers as error-free and guaranteeing that their output will be flawless. The earlier example makes that unexplained confidence especially questionable.
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