PrepTest 152, Section 4, Question 11
To be considered for this year's Gillespie Grant,(57 more words not shown)
The reasoning in the argument(6 more words not shown)
- Adoes not establish(13 more words not shown)
- Bdoes not determine(12 more words not shown)
- Cdoes not consider(15 more words not shown)
- Dpresumes, without providing(26 more words not shown)
- Eoverlooks the possibility(20 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
Mailing early sounds like good planning. If delivery can take ten days, I'd want to allow enough time before the October 1 arrival deadline.
But the flaw question makes me check what the conclusion actually says. It doesn't merely advise Mary to allow ten days. It says mailing ten days before the deadline is required for consideration. Those are different claims.
What if the mail arrives in five days?
What we’re looking for
Then an application sent fewer than ten days before the deadline could still arrive on time. 'Up to ten days' gives us the slow end of the delivery range, not a rule that every letter takes ten days. The argument turns the time Mary might need into time she must need. That is the mistake I'd look for.
Working the answers
- A
The conclusion is conditional: if Mary sends an application by regular mail from Greendale, the author claims she must send it ten days early. We can assess that claim without establishing that Mary actually applies. The flaw concerns the required mailing time within that situation, not whether she enters it.
- B
The conclusion specifically concerns regular mail. We don't need to know the express-mail delivery time to question whether regular mail always requires ten days. A faster regular delivery would expose the mistake without involving express mail at all.
- CCorrect
The argument considers how long delivery can take without considering how quickly it could happen. If the minimum were three days, an application mailed four days before the deadline could arrive in time. The ten-day maximum may justify allowing a safety margin; it doesn't justify declaring every later mailing ineligible.
- D
The author doesn't say arriving by October 1 guarantees consideration or satisfies every other requirement. The claim concerns a supposedly necessary condition. A person can fail one requirement regardless of whether other requirements are met, so we needn't assume those other conditions are satisfied to make that kind of claim. The error is that this particular ten-day condition hasn't been established.
- E
Being certain of delivery is different from having an application actually arrive in time. Mary could lack a guarantee and still receive consideration after a quick regular-mail delivery. Whether express mail is needed for certainty doesn't establish that mailing regular mail ten days early is necessary for an on-time arrival.
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