PrepTest 132, Section 2, Question 8
A leading critic of space exploration contends that(64 more words not shown)
The reasoning in the argument(6 more words not shown)
- Ainfers that something(18 more words not shown)
- Binfers that something(12 more words not shown)
- Cdraws a conclusion(15 more words not shown)
- Dinfers that something(7 more words not shown)
- Erejects a view(13 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
Could volunteers choose to take a dangerous trip for the sake of science? That's a reasonable reaction to the critic's claim that sending explorers would be wrong. But the author makes a different objection: the critic supposedly exaggerates the danger. We need to examine that claim about risk.
Backup systems sound useful. Let's accept the stated result: with a backup in place, a fatal catastrophe is unlikely at any particular stage.
How many stages must the explorers survive?
A small risk repeated many times can become a substantial risk over the entire trip. Imagine a 5 percent chance of a fatal failure at each of 1,000 independent stages. Surviving any one stage is likely; surviving all 1,000 is extremely unlikely. We don't just add percentages together. The point is that each stage creates another opportunity for the journey to end badly.
What we’re looking for
The flaw is treating low risk at each stage as enough to establish low risk for the whole trip. The author needs to consider the combined journey, not just reassure us about each piece separately.
Working the answers
- ACorrect
The parts are the individual stages, each with a low risk of catastrophe. The whole is the complete journey. The author transfers the claim about each part to the entire trip without showing that all those risks together remain small. Our many-stage example shows why that transfer can fail.
- B
The author doesn't say a catastrophe cannot happen. The claim is that the critic exaggerates the risk. We can criticize that assessment without rewriting it as a promise of perfect safety. B would fit a jump from unlikely to impossible, which isn't the jump here.
- C
Again, the argument doesn't turn a probability into a certainty about survival. It disputes the critic's assessment of how likely catastrophe is. The problem lies in assessing the whole trip from its stages, not in claiming that something must happen.
- D
The argument offers more than the mere possibility that the backup systems could work. It gives us a specific premise about low risk at each stage. The unsupported step is extending that low risk to the whole journey, not treating “could work” as “will work.”
- E
The author doesn't merely say the critic gave a bad argument and therefore must be wrong. The author offers positive evidence about backup systems and the risk at individual stages. That evidence is inadequate for the conclusion, but E describes a different kind of rejection.
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