PrepTest 133, Section 3, Question 2
Artist: Almost everyone in this country really wants(50 more words not shown)
The reasoning in the artist's(7 more words not shown)
- Acontains a premise(7 more words not shown)
- Bpresumes that what(18 more words not shown)
- Cdefends a view(10 more words not shown)
- Dbases its conclusion(16 more words not shown)
- Efails to make(16 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
Almost everyone in the country wants to be an artist? That's a much bigger claim than saying some people would rather paint than work their current jobs.
Let's see where that claim comes from. Just about everyone this artist knows hopes to earn a living as a painter, musician, or poet. But who does an artist tend to know? Quite possibly other people interested in art. A circle full of aspiring musicians and painters could tell us a lot about that circle and very little about what the rest of the country wants.
Their current jobs don't fix that problem. A dishwasher who hopes to become a musician is still an aspiring artist. Knowing people with different pay-the-rent jobs doesn't establish that the artist knows a broad cross section of people's ambitions.
What we’re looking for
So the flaw is the jump from “the people I know” to “almost everyone in the country.” We want an answer pointing out that this particular group may not represent the larger population.
Working the answers
- A
The premise doesn't simply assume the conclusion. A claim about the artist's acquaintances is different from a claim about the entire country. The problem is that the first group may not give us a reliable picture of the second, not that the conclusion is being repeated as its own support.
- B
We don't have evidence about each person in the country. We have evidence about the people this artist knows. B describes moving from a property of every individual to a property of the group as a unit; this argument moves from a limited group of people to a much larger group of people.
- C
The artist isn't saying a belief is true because many people believe it. The artist is using acquaintances' ambitions as evidence about other people's ambitions. That evidence could be accurate about the acquaintances while still failing to support the national claim.
- DCorrect
The sample is the artist's acquaintances. Because that circle may contain far more aspiring artists than the country does generally, it is unlikely to be a reliable guide to what almost everyone in the country wants. We don't need to establish exactly how many people want artistic careers to spot that problem.
- E
The artist explicitly acknowledges that people can want artistic careers while working other jobs. Wanting to make a living as an artist and currently doing so aren't being treated as the same thing. The unsupported step concerns whose desires we can infer, not whether a desired career is already paying the rent.
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