PrepTest 139, Section 4, Question 3
Letter to the editor: You have asserted that(41 more words not shown)
The reasoning of the argument(14 more words not shown)
- Adraws a conclusion(17 more words not shown)
- Btakes the condition(14 more words not shown)
- Crejects a claim(13 more words not shown)
- Dconcludes that a(14 more words not shown)
- Econcludes that a(14 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
What about the businesses that aren't Byworks?
Wanting a charity to spend donations efficiently sounds reasonable. If I give money to help people, I want it to reach that purpose rather than disappear into unnecessary costs. The letter's objection turns out to be that matching private business would lower the standard: look at this company that keeps losing money.
But that's one company. Imagine putting organizations on an efficiency scale. Byworks could sit near the bottom, nonprofits could be higher, and most other businesses could be higher still. In that situation, Byworks would be a poor model, but private business generally could still offer something worth imitating.
What we’re looking for
The flaw question asks us to identify that move from one business to businesses as a group. Accepting the criticism of Byworks doesn't require accepting the letter's claim about what philanthropists want.
Working the answers
- A
The letter concludes that philanthropists do not want nonprofits to match private business. That's a claim about their wishes, not a conclusion about what morally ought to happen. The problem we identified concerns the company used to represent private business, not a jump from facts to a moral duty.
- BCorrect
Byworks is the one member; private businesses are the broader category. The letter treats this struggling company's condition as if it tells us what it would mean to make nonprofits as efficient as private business generally. Byworks could be an unusually poor performer. Its losses don't establish the standard set by the whole category.
- C
The writer disagrees with the editor, but disagreement isn't a personal attack. The letter doesn't reject the editor's claim because the editor is dishonest or unintelligent. It tries to challenge the claim by giving a business example. The example is inadequate, but that is a different problem.
- D
The letter does offer evidence: Byworks has posted huge losses for years. The problem is using that company's condition to speak for private business generally. The reasoning isn't simply “there is no evidence for your claim, so it must be false.”
- E
We aren't told that one thing causes another thing and that the result therefore shares its cause's property. The move is from a company to the category containing it. Neither private businesses causing nonprofits nor Byworks causing the whole business sector appears in this reasoning.
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