PrepTest 131, Section 3, Question 15
There are circumstances in which it is not(44 more words not shown)
Which one of the following(14 more words not shown)
- AThere are many(41 more words not shown)
- BIt is usually(36 more words not shown)
- CIt is healthful(33 more words not shown)
- DHeavy trucks are(39 more words not shown)
- EThe mountain roads(34 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
Some threats may be permissible. A threat to defend your family, for example, could be quite different from a threat intended to exploit someone. Asking for money can also be permissible: a lawyer can ask to be paid for legal work. Let's accept those separate claims.
But can we combine them? The circumstances in which a threat is acceptable might be different from those in which a request for money is acceptable. Asking for payment while threatening someone adds a combination the premises haven't justified.
Think of two imagined wildlife reserves, one with kangaroos and one with lions. Knowing that kangaroos live somewhere and lions live somewhere doesn't establish that they share a place. Similarly, separately identifying circumstances in which each act is permissible doesn't establish a circumstance in which their combination is permissible.
What we’re looking for
For the parallel flaw, look for two things judged acceptable separately and an unsupported conclusion that doing them together is also acceptable.
Working the answers
- A
This starts with two settings in which casual dress is appropriate, but its conclusion concerns an occasion that is neither kind of setting. The original combines the two separately acceptable acts. A instead treats the named acceptable settings as a basis for ruling against an outside setting. That is a different move.
- B
Moving the piano is said to be easy under specified conditions: five helpers and no stairs. The conclusion drops those conditions and calls moving a piano easy generally. It doesn't combine two separately acceptable activities; it removes qualifications from one claim.
- CCorrect
Taking drug A is healthful, and taking drug B is healthful. The conclusion assumes taking both together is healthful. That combination might have a different effect from either drug alone. Just as a permissible threat and a permissible request for money don't establish that combining them is permissible, two individually beneficial treatments don't establish that their combination is beneficial.
- D
This says trucks are generally operated safely and that certain drugs can impair safe driving, then concludes that driving under any prescription drug cannot be safe. It broadens a possible impairment from certain drugs into a sweeping prohibition. It doesn't begin with two separately acceptable activities and infer that their combination is acceptable.
- E
Rain produces two effects: treacherous roads and full streams. The argument then treats those effects as proof that it rained, without ruling out another way they could occur. That is a move from effects to a supposed cause, not from the acceptability of separate acts to the acceptability of combining them.
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