PrepTest 117, Section 3, Question 6
Hana said she was not going to invite(53 more words not shown)
A reasoning error in the(5 more words not shown)
- Adisregards the possibility(13 more words not shown)
- Btreats the fact(22 more words not shown)
- Cuses a term(11 more words not shown)
- Dfails to establish(12 more words not shown)
- Eoverlooks the possibility(21 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
Why think her brothers were the only people who could buy that recording?
Imagine Hana loves a particular band and everyone knows it. Her brothers plan to buy her its new album, but so does a friend. Hana gets the recording at her party. That fits everything we know about the gift without putting a single brother among the guests.
The argument moves from the brothers' plan to their attendance as though their plan identifies who must have supplied the gift. It doesn't. Her friends, her mother, or her sisters could have had the same idea. We aren't told that the recording was available only to her brothers or that nobody else knew she wanted it.
What we’re looking for
The flaw question asks us to describe that missing step. My prediction is that the author overlooks other people who could have given her the recording. Keep that concrete objection in mind when the answers turn it into abstract language. Also keep the evidence and conclusion straight: receiving the gift is a fact we're given; the brothers' attendance is the claim we're supposed to be convinced of.
Working the answers
- A
The argument doesn't judge whether Hana would be justified in changing her mind about inviting her brothers. It tries to establish that they attended. A change of circumstances might justify an invitation, but that wouldn't make the recording proof that the brothers were there.
- B
This gets the reasoning backward. The argument doesn't start with the brothers' presence as an established fact and infer that they had a legitimate reason to attend. Their presence is the conclusion. The evidence is the gift and their plan to give it. B describes a different starting point and a different conclusion.
- C
An evaluative term expresses a judgment, such as whether something is good. The reasoning here doesn't depend on treating such a judgment as a neutral description. It depends on treating a planned gift as identifying its giver. There's no word whose evaluative meaning explains that jump.
- DCorrect
Some people planned to give Hana this recording: her brothers. But the argument hasn't shown that only those people could have supplied it. A friend could give exactly the same gift. Once we allow that possibility, receiving the recording no longer establishes that any brother attended the party.
- E
Hana could be interested in two different kinds of music, or in music and something entirely different. The argument doesn't deny that. It concerns who gave her one particular gift, not whether liking one thing rules out liking another.
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