PrepTest 146, Section 2, Question 24
There are only two plausible views about where(51 more words not shown)
The pattern of questionable reasoning(15 more words not shown)
- AThis cardiac patient(30 more words not shown)
- BShould the company(44 more words not shown)
- CHistory is driven(31 more words not shown)
- DSome analysts are(33 more words not shown)
- EIf the party(48 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
Not having a convincing explanation for one possibility doesn't make that possibility false. The author gives us two possible sources of a painting's aesthetic value: its formal qualities or its meaning. Then the author treats the absence of a compelling account of formal value as a reason to choose meaning. But maybe the formal explanation is correct and nobody has explained it convincingly yet.
What we’re looking for
So we need more than an argument saying, 'Either this or that; not this; therefore that.' Rejecting a possibility could be legitimate if it had actually been ruled out. Here the mistake is treating a failure to establish one option as though it eliminated that option. The parallel should make that same move.
Working the answers
- A
'Among other methods' means there are more than two options, so the starting setup differs. A also gives an actual drawback to surgery: a long recovery. It doesn't say that nobody has convincingly explained how surgery could work. The recommendation may ignore other treatments, but it doesn't use the original's absence-of-explanation move to choose between two stated possibilities.
- B
Losing the bid would force layoffs or new business. If new business isn't expected, layoffs remain an option. The company needn't expect to win the bid just because it doesn't expect new business. That is a failure to account for an available consequence of losing, rather than treating the lack of a convincing account of one theory as proof of another.
- CCorrect
Economic forces and political forces play the roles of formal qualities and meaning. No historian has convincingly established the economic explanation, just as nobody has supplied a compelling account of formal value. The author then chooses the other explanation. In both cases, 'not convincingly shown' is wrongly treated as 'ruled out.'
- D
The forecast applies if the economy expands; we aren't told that this happens. Even if it did, stable unemployment would leave rising inflation as the predicted alternative, not establish that inflation remains stable too. D doesn't select the remaining option after an unsupported rejection of the first. It concludes that neither predicted change occurs.
- E
Keeping the policies would lead to a heavy loss. Changing them would upset some supporters, but losing some supporters doesn't establish an inevitable defeat. The party might retain enough voters, or gain others, to win. E treats a disadvantage of the second course as though it guaranteed failure. It doesn't rely on the absence of convincing support for one explanation to establish its rival.
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