PrepTest 147, Section 1, Question 26
Some eloquent speakers impress their audiences with the(25 more words not shown)
The flawed reasoning in which(13 more words not shown)
- AA culture without(21 more words not shown)
- BThere are authors(34 more words not shown)
- CCities that are(31 more words not shown)
- DMost farmers like(19 more words not shown)
- ESculptors sometimes produce(17 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
An obscene comedian could still impress an audience by being funny. Eloquence isn't the only possible way to impress people.
What we’re looking for
The premise says some eloquent speakers impress their audiences. It doesn't even guarantee that all eloquent speakers do, much less that nobody else can. Yet the author excludes obscene speakers from the eloquent group and concludes that none of them impress anyone. For a parallel flaw, I'd look for that same move: some members of one group achieve something, a second group falls outside the first, and the author wrongly concludes that the second group never achieves it.
Working the answers
- A
This correctly applies the stated rule. A culture without myths lacks fundamental moral certainties; this particular culture has no myths; therefore, it lacks those certainties. The case meets the condition in the rule. The original instead places a group outside the group mentioned in its evidence and then denies that the excluded group can produce the same result. A doesn't make that leap.
- B
This conclusion actually follows. We are told there are authors who both write one page a day and produce one book a year. Serious authors do not write one page a day, so those particular one-page-a-day authors aren't serious. Since they also produce one book a year, we have examples of annual-book authors who aren't serious. B uses the people whose existence is given to establish a 'some' conclusion; it doesn't conclude that an excluded group can never achieve the result.
- C
This makes an unsupported claim about which cities are small. All centers of commerce are centers of industry, and some centers of industry aren't small. That doesn't establish any small centers of commerce: all the commercial centers could be large. So C is flawed, but it doesn't match the original's structure of excluding a second group from a first group and then denying the second group an outcome achieved by some members of the first.
- D
This is tempting because being outside the farmer group doesn't tell us Carla lacks a preference found among farmers. Nonfarmers might enjoy the country too. But the argument starts with what most farmers like and reaches a probability judgment about one person. The original starts with some members of a group and makes an absolute claim that none of a different group achieve the result. E matches those details more closely.
- ECorrect
Sculptors match the eloquent speakers: some of them produce the desired result, significant art or an impressed audience. Musicians match the obscene speakers: they're said to fall outside that first group. Then the conclusion wrongly denies them the result altogether. Musicians could make significant art through music, just as an obscene speaker could impress through humor. In both arguments, learning that some people achieve a result one way doesn't establish that people outside that group can never achieve it another way.
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