PrepTest 144, Section 3, Question 2
Columnist: An information design expert has argued that(48 more words not shown)
The columnist's argument is most(8 more words not shown)
- Abases its conclusion(8 more words not shown)
- Btakes for granted(11 more words not shown)
- Cbases an endorsement(8 more words not shown)
- Dfails to consider(10 more words not shown)
- Erejects a claim(8 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
Why can't the tool be part of the problem?
GIAPS sounds like presentation software: it supplies templates and an automatic presentation wizard. The expert thinks those features lead people to make ineffective presentations. We might want more evidence for that claim. Perhaps the templates make information hard to follow, or the automatic features encourage people to skip important decisions about what to show.
But the columnist doesn't examine how the software works. The response is simply that GIAPS is a tool, so the people using it must be responsible. I can agree that someone making a presentation has responsibility for the result. That doesn't establish that the software works well. A person could use a badly designed tool poorly, and both problems could contribute to the bad presentation.
Or the tool itself could fail to do its job even when someone tries to use it carefully. Calling something a tool doesn't tell us it's a good tool.
What we’re looking for
The flaw question asks why the columnist's defense fails. Look for the possibility that blaming the users doesn't eliminate: the software might actually be bad at making presentations.
Working the answers
- A
Which claims contradict each other? Saying GIAPS is a tool and saying its users are responsible can both be true. The problem is what the columnist tries to infer from those claims. A weak argument does not automatically contain incompatible premises.
- B
The argument isn't trying to prove that every presentation that avoids being ineffective counts as good. It is deciding who or what deserves blame for bad presentations. A distinction between good and merely not ineffective doesn't address the assumption that a tool cannot contribute to the problem.
- C
GIAPS is described as popular, but popularity isn't the columnist's reason for defending it. The defense is that it is just a tool. Mentioning a product's popularity isn't the same as arguing that its popularity makes it good.
- DCorrect
A tool might fail at its intended job. If GIAPS is poorly designed for communicating information, its design could help explain the ineffective presentations. The columnist rules that out simply because it is a tool, without giving us any reason to believe the tool works well.
- E
The columnist doesn't attack the expert's character or qualifications. That would look like, 'This expert is dishonest, so the claim must be false.' Here the response concerns the tool's supposed inability to bear responsibility. The expert's identity isn't the basis of the rejection.
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