PrepTest 149, Section 3, Question 4
Editorial: It is common to find essays offering(45 more words not shown)
Which one of the following(9 more words not shown)
- AThe editorial dismisses(12 more words not shown)
- BThe editorial compares(9 more words not shown)
- CThe editorial confuses(11 more words not shown)
- DThe editorial overlooks(11 more words not shown)
- EThe editorial dismisses(11 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
Maybe they're anxious because something is wrong.
An essay's worried tone doesn't tell us whether its evidence is good. Imagine a writer describing real signs of national decline and sounding upset about them. The emotion and the accurate criticism could go together. Calling attention to the emotion wouldn't make the facts disappear.
The editorial tells us not to be alarmed, but it hasn't addressed how the nation is actually doing. Are the essays' reasons convincing? Are their facts accurate? We aren't told. Instead, the editorial substitutes a judgment about the writers' psychological state for an assessment of their arguments.
What we’re looking for
For the flaw, that's the move to identify: dismissing the claim because of how its advocates sound, without examining their reasons. We don't have to decide that the nation is declining to see why the editorial hasn't ruled it out.
Working the answers
- ACorrect
The editorial focuses on anxious tone without considering the reasons the essays offer for their claim. A writer might be anxious and have a sound argument. We need to evaluate the evidence about the nation before concluding that the problem lies only in the writer's state of mind.
- B
There isn't an analogy between two situations here. The editorial doesn't compare two countries or use one historical period to predict another. It dismisses arguments about this nation's condition by pointing to their tone. There are no differences between two compared cases doing the work B describes.
- C
The passage doesn't distinguish cultural decline from political decline, then switch from one to the other. It speaks generally about national decline. We can't manufacture a confusion between two categories the argument never separates.
- D
Saying there is no cause for alarm doesn't require saying the nation is thriving. It could be stable. The editorial needn't overlook that middle possibility to make its actual mistake: treating the writers' anxiety as a reason to reject their claims about decline.
- E
The anxious tone is offered as evidence, but it doesn't itself establish the view the editorial rejects. Anxiety could accompany real decline or a mistaken belief in decline. Our objection is that the editorial hasn't examined the relevant reasons, not that the tone actually demonstrates the opposite conclusion.
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