PrepTest 143, Section 3, Question 7
Employee: My boss says that my presentation to(31 more words not shown)
The reasoning in the employee's(6 more words not shown)
- Atakes for granted(11 more words not shown)
- Bfails to distinguish(9 more words not shown)
- Cfails to consider(16 more words not shown)
- Dinfers a generalization(6 more words not shown)
- Econfuses two distinct(6 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
Maybe the presentation barely explained the profit projections at all.
The boss asks for more detail. The employee responds that too much detail makes people lose interest. I agree that an overloaded presentation could be bad. But that leaves plenty of room for this presentation to have had too little information.
What we’re looking for
Suppose the employee announced that profits would rise without explaining by how much or why. Adding a few useful projections could improve that presentation without burying the audience in information. “Too much is bad” doesn't establish “I already gave enough.” That's the distinction the flaw answer should capture.
Working the answers
- A
The employee rejects this assessment of this presentation. We aren't told that the boss generally gives inaccurate assessments. The employee could consider the boss reliable in most cases and still make this mistaken defense of one presentation.
- BCorrect
More detail and too much detail aren't the same thing. The boss could want a useful increase that still stops well short of overload.
Imagine telling someone that a piece of chicken needs a little more salt. “But dumping the whole saltshaker on it would ruin it!” misses the point. You asked for more, not an excessive amount. The employee makes the same move when answering a request for additional detail with an objection to too much detail.
- C
Other things could distract the audience. Someone's phone might ring, for example. But that doesn't address whether this presentation needed more explanation of the projections. Listing other causes of wandering attention leaves the employee's confusion between more and excessive detail untouched.
- D
The employee isn't using this one case to conclude that all presentations need less detail or that the boss is always wrong. The general statement about attention is offered as a reason for a conclusion about one presentation. D gets the direction of the reasoning wrong.
- E
“Detail” keeps the same meaning: information included in the presentation. Nobody switches from details about profit projections to detailing a car. The confusion concerns the amount of detail, not two meanings of the word.
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