PrepTest 157, Section 2, Question 17
The average tax refund received by taxpayers who(33 more words not shown)
Which one of the following(15 more words not shown)
- APeople who invest(31 more words not shown)
- BEstablishing an in-house(25 more words not shown)
- CQuitting smoking will(34 more words not shown)
- DPeople with larger-than-average(27 more words not shown)
- EIn deciding who(32 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
Maybe people expecting bigger refunds are the ones who seek professional help.
Imagine that complicated tax situations tend to produce larger refunds and also lead people to use a tax preparation service. The service's customers would get larger refunds on average even if the service didn't increase anyone's refund. That is a possible explanation for the reported comparison, not a claim about how tax services actually work.
What we’re looking for
The argument skips over that possibility. It treats a difference between two groups as evidence that joining one group will produce the desired result. We're asked for the same mistake elsewhere: people who do something tend to have a benefit, so do that thing to get the benefit. Look for the unsupported step from an observed association to a recommendation based on cause and effect.
Working the answers
- ACorrect
Investing heavily takes the place of using the preparation service, and higher income takes the place of a larger refund. In each case, the people who do the activity tend to have more of the desirable result than those who don't. Each argument then recommends the activity to produce that result.
But perhaps having a high income gives people the spare money to invest heavily. The investment needn't be what made their income high, just as using a preparation service needn't be what made its customers' refunds large. The same unsupported causal step drives both recommendations.
- B
This premise already says that an in-house print shop enables more efficient production. It supplies the beneficial effect rather than merely observing that companies with print shops tend to be efficient. There could still be a problem with the recommendation: what if the shop saves only five dollars a day but costs a million dollars to install? That would be a failure to weigh the benefit against the cost, not our original mistake about whether the benefit is caused at all.
- C
The premise gives two effects of quitting smoking: a lower premium and a lower risk of lung cancer. The conclusion then treats reducing the cancer risk as a way to obtain the lower premium. But two effects of the same action aren't automatically causes of each other. C might have a causal problem, but its structure differs from observing a difference between groups and assuming that joining one causes its advantage.
- D
The premise says having a lawyer is helpful to people with large estates. That directly gives a benefit of the recommended action. It doesn't merely say that people with lawyers tend to have large estates and then recommend a lawyer as a way to get a large estate. That latter argument would resemble the tax argument much more closely.
- E
We are told how telemarketers choose targets: they deliberately target previous buyers. That supplies a reason buying from them could lead to future calls. The recommendation therefore rests on a stated selection process, not just an unexplained association between buying and receiving calls. Avoiding purchases might not prevent every possible call, but that doesn't give E the same flaw as the tax argument.
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