PrepTest 140, Section 2, Question 23
Company president: Almost every really successful product introduced(36 more words not shown)
The flawed nature of the(18 more words not shown)
- Athe president of(31 more words not shown)
- BDonna has at(35 more words not shown)
- Calmost all of(30 more words not shown)
- DRobinson will probably(23 more words not shown)
- Ethe novel Safekeeping(25 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
What about all the heavily advertised products that failed?
The president has looked at the winners and noticed that almost all had massive television campaigns. That doesn't tell us the success rate among products receiving those campaigns. There could be many failures with equally expensive advertising. Vegetaste could join that group while the observation about the successful products remained true.
What we’re looking for
That's the mistake I want to match: looking only at successful cases, noticing a common feature, then predicting success for a new case just because it has that feature. Keep the direction straight. Successful products tended to have big campaigns; we haven't learned that products with big campaigns tended to succeed.
Working the answers
- A
Here, being in headquarters usually goes with having a small office. The president has a large office, so the argument rules out headquarters. The problem is treating “almost all” as though there could be no large-office exception. Our president instead gives a product the common feature of successful products and infers success. A doesn't make that same move.
- B
Coderight programmers generally have ten years' experience, and Donna will probably join that group. The argument infers the usual feature from likely group membership, making the conclusion more definite than the evidence allows. It doesn't start with Donna having ten years' experience and conclude that she'll get the job. That reversed route would resemble our advertising mistake.
- C
This passes through two nested groups: almost all employees are factory workers, and almost all of those workers oppose the merger. The issue is whether two near-universal percentages preserve “almost all” when combined. For illustration, 90 out of 100 employees could be factory workers and 81 of those 90 could oppose the merger, leaving 81 out of 100 employees opposed. The percentages can shrink as the steps combine. That differs from using a common feature of winners to predict a new winner.
- DCorrect
Past presidents correspond to successful products. Having a Ph.D. corresponds to having a massive advertising campaign. Robinson, like Vegetaste, has the feature associated with the successful group, so the argument predicts that Robinson will join that group.
What about all the people with Ph.D.s who never become university president? They correspond to the heavily advertised products that fail. Knowing that presidents usually have the degree doesn't tell us that degree-holders usually become presidents. D makes the same unsupported turn as the company president.
- E
This starts with a group—Peninsula's published novels—and its strong track record of profitability, then makes a probable prediction about another member of that group. It doesn't start with profitable novels, observe that they usually have a feature, and use that feature to predict profitability. The direction of the evidence matches the direction of the prediction, so this isn't the same flaw.
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