PrepTest 135, Section 4, Question 11
Rolanda: The house on Oak Avenue has a(67 more words not shown)
Rolanda's response to Tom suggests(10 more words not shown)
- AHe fails to(14 more words not shown)
- BHe presumes, without(14 more words not shown)
- CHe improperly applies(12 more words not shown)
- DHe fails to(8 more words not shown)
- EHe presumes, without(18 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
A big yard doesn't automatically make this the best house. What about the plumbing or the number of bedrooms? That's a concern we could raise with Rolanda's first argument.
But Tom makes a different objection. He says part of the apparent yard belongs to the city, so the Oak Avenue property isn't as large as it looks. Rolanda's reply is good: that same rule applies to every property they've considered. Tom has reduced this house's apparent advantage without applying the same correction to the alternatives.
Imagine choosing among three fast-food restaurants. Someone rejects one because its food is unhealthy, without noticing that the other two have the same drawback. The objection might be true, but it hasn't shown why that option is worse than the others.
What we’re looking for
We're asked about Tom's mistake as exposed by Rolanda's reply. We need to describe his selective use of a rule that applies across the comparison. We don't need to defend every part of Rolanda's original argument.
Working the answers
- A
Rolanda's reply doesn't concern possible advantages of a smaller yard. She says the property-line restriction applies to the other houses too. This answer shifts to a different debate about which yard size they should prefer.
- B
Tom doesn't assume city property is available for private use. His objection treats the city's ownership as a reason to discount the apparent yard. Whether they can use that land is a separate question, and Rolanda doesn't raise it in her reply.
- C
The rule does cover the Oak Avenue property: it's in Prairieview. This would be the wrong objection even if the same rule didn't apply in a neighboring town. Tom's mistake isn't applying the rule where it doesn't belong; it's failing to account for its application to the other properties where it also belongs.
- DCorrect
Tom applies Prairieview's rule to one house but doesn't make the corresponding adjustment for the others. To compare the actual yards, he needs to consider the property lines for all of them. Pointing out that this yard is smaller than it appears doesn't by itself establish that another yard is larger.
- E
Tom doesn't transfer a characteristic of one part to an entire object. He isn't saying, for instance, that because part of the yard belongs to the city, the entire property does. He discounts part of one yard while failing to apply the same rule to the other relevant properties.
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