PrepTest 147, Section 1, Question 15
A popular book argues that people who are(36 more words not shown)
The argument commits which one(6 more words not shown)
- AIt mistakes the(18 more words not shown)
- BIt accepts a(13 more words not shown)
- CIt takes for(13 more words not shown)
- DIt treats an(9 more words not shown)
- EIt attacks the(12 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
Why not both? Someone could work extremely hard and also benefit from a lot of luck.
What we’re looking for
The book doesn't say luck does all the work. It says every successful businessperson has benefited from it. Pointing out that success also requires hard work doesn't contradict that. Perhaps neither luck nor effort is enough by itself. That's the flaw: the author treats the two explanations as competing when they could fit together.
Working the answers
- ACorrect
This describes the mistake in more abstract language. Saying that luck is required for success doesn't mean luck is sufficient—that luck alone will get the job done. Yet the author responds as though showing a need for hard work defeats the claim about luck. Both luck and hard work could be required, so the premise about effort doesn't refute the book's claim.
- B
The author does appeal to what people who study successful people supposedly know. But the central problem remains even if their claim about hard work is completely reliable. We can grant that success requires hard work and still accept that luck is also involved. The argument's mistake lies in treating those claims as incompatible, not in depending on an unestablished authority to bridge that gap.
- C
The premise and conclusion aren't the same claim. 'Success requires hard work' differs from 'the book is wrong that successful people have benefited from luck.' The author tries to use the first to establish the second. It fails because the claims can coexist, not because the premise simply repeats what the author wants to prove.
- D
This isn't a case of swapping what causes something with what results from it. The author doesn't mistake success for a cause of the earlier hard work or luck. Instead, it treats the need for one contribution to success as a reason to deny another contribution.
- E
Calling the book's claim ridiculous is a rejection of its content, not a personal attack on its author. The argument doesn't say the writer is dishonest, foolish, or otherwise unworthy of belief. It offers a substantive objection about hard work; that objection just doesn't conflict with the claim it's supposed to defeat.
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