PrepTest 124, Section 3, Question 24
Professor: A person who can select a beverage(54 more words not shown)
The professor's argument proceeds(1 more words not shown)
- Asupporting a general(6 more words not shown)
- Bdrawing a conclusion(11 more words not shown)
- Csupporting its conclusion(5 more words not shown)
- Dclaiming that whatever(13 more words not shown)
- Einferring one general(6 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
Fifty versions of cola still leave you choosing cola. Five very different drinks give you a different kind of choice.
That's why the professor compares the options. Pepsi, Coca-Cola, and another cola may vary, but choosing among them is different from choosing between wine, coffee, apple juice, milk, and water. The smaller list covers a wider range of possibilities. Simply counting the items misses that difference.
The professor uses this concrete example to support a general point about meaningful freedom: the number of alternatives isn't the only relevant measure. How different those alternatives are matters too. Notice that the argument doesn't say numbers never matter; it says numbers alone don't settle the issue.
What we’re looking for
We're asked how the argument proceeds. My prediction is example first, broader principle second. Keep that direction clear when we test the answers.
Working the answers
- ACorrect
The beverage choices are the example. The general principle is that meaningful freedom depends on differences among alternatives as well as their number. The professor uses the specific comparison to give us a reason to accept that broader claim.
- B
This reverses the direction. To match B, the professor would start with a general rule about freedom and use it to decide how free a particular person is. Here the beverage example supplies support for the broader conclusion. The conclusion isn't merely a verdict about one person's drink choices.
- C
There is a comparison, but it functions as an example of the general principle. An argument by analogy would use what we know about one case to reach a corresponding conclusion about another case. Here the professor isn't concluding, for instance, that choices about books work like choices about drinks. The conclusion states the general lesson illustrated by the beverage options.
- D
The professor doesn't assign a property to each beverage and then infer that the collection has that property. The argument compares two sets of available choices to make a point about freedom. Having groups in the example isn't enough to make this reasoning from each member to the whole.
- E
The starting statement is a particular comparison involving beverages, not a more general principle about freedom. The argument moves from that example to a principle. E would require a broad rule as its starting support, which isn't what the professor supplies.
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