Summary
According to the stimulus, all societies consider some rules so important that they are defined as duties. (For example, limiting violence and keeping promises.) Duties are considered so important to society that they must be fulfilled even if it harms the dutiful person’s self-interest. Therefore... what?
Strongly Supported Conclusions
Based on the stimulus, we can infer that:
All societies require people to restrict violence and keep their agreements to at least some extent, even if doing so is contrary to their self-interest.
All societies believe that people may sometimes be required to follow a duty instead of their self-interest.
All societies require people to restrict violence and keep their agreements to at least some extent, even if doing so is contrary to their self-interest.
All societies believe that people may sometimes be required to follow a duty instead of their self-interest.
A
all societies overrate the benefits of certain rules, such as those governing the keeping of agreements
This is not supported. The stimulus doesn’t indicate whether societies do or do not accurately estimate the benefits of certain rules, so we cannot draw this conclusion.
B
all societies have certain rules that no people are capable of following
This is not supported. The stimulus never suggests whether or not people are capable of following certain rules or duties, so we can’t infer this statement.
C
all societies recognize the possibility of clashes between individual self-interest and the performance of duty
This is strongly supported. The stimulus says that all societies recognize some duties, and a duty inherently means something that cannot be excused by self-interest. That must mean that all societies recognize a possibility of a choice (or clash) between duty and self-interest.
D
a properly functioning society will recognize that some duties take priority over others
This is not supported. The stimulus doesn’t indicate a hierarchy of duties at all, nor does it suggest that duties will ever necessarily come into conflict. So, we can’t say that some duties would have to take priority.
E
societies have no right to expect people always to perform their duties
This is not supported. The stimulus doesn’t indicate the limits of societies’ rights, nor does it talk about any scenario where someone could be excused from performing their duties.
Summarize Argument
The author concludes that businesses must use a cash-flow statement. This is because expenses don’t always occur monthly, and only taking into account monthly expenses can cause businesses to overexpand.
Notable Assumptions
The author assumes that a cash-flow statement accounts for expenses that don’t occur monthly.
A
Only a cash-flow statement can accurately document all monthly expenses.
We need to know about non-monthly expenses.
B
Any business that has overexpanded can benefit from the use of a cash-flow statement.
We need to know why cash-flow statements are critical in the first place. Do they account for non-monthly expenses?
C
When a business documents only monthly expenses it also documents only monthly revenue.
We don’t care about revenue. We care about documenting non-monthly expenses.
D
A cash-flow statement is the only way to track both monthly expenses and expenses that are not monthly.
A cash-flow statement accounts for monthly and non-monthly expenses. This strengthens the author’s claim that a cash-flow statement solves the problem of accounting only for monthly expenses.
E
When a business takes into account all expenses, not just monthly ones, it can make better decisions.
Do cash-flow statements allow businesses to do this? We don’t know.
Summarize Argument: Counter-Position
The editorial concludes that it may not be true that increased government services have caused a decrease in volunteer organizations. This is supported by the proposal that declining volunteerism may instead have caused the increase in government services.
Describe Method of Reasoning
The editorial points out that a correlation between two events could potentially be explained with an opposite causal relationship than the one put forward by others. By introducing an alternative explanation, the editorial casts doubt on others’ explanation of the correlation.
A
showing that there is no causality involved
The editorial does not claim that there is no causality involved, just that the particular causal relationship proposed by others is not necessarily true.
B
offering a counterexample to the alleged correlation
The editorial does not deny or attempt to counter the correlation between increasing government services and decreasing volunteerism.
C
proving that no generalization can properly be drawn about people’s motives for volunteering
The editorial doesn’t make any claims regarding drawing a generalization about people’s motivation for volunteering.
D
offering an alternate explanation of the correlation cited
The editorial offers an alternate explanation of the correlation between increased government services and decreased volunteering: that the latter phenomenon could cause the former, instead of the other way around.
E
proving that governments must do what community organizations fail to do
The editorial doesn’t make any judgments about what governments must or must not be responsible for.
Summarize Argument
The fortune-teller concludes that some people must possess ESP. Her reasoning is that, despite many attempts to do so, it has not yet been scientifically proven that ESP does not exist.
Identify and Describe Flaw
This is the cookie-cutter flaw of mistaking an unsupported conclusion for a false conclusion. The fortune-teller says that we don’t have enough support to conclude that ESP doesn’t exist. That tells us that ESP could exist, not that it must exist. Future research could prove that ESP doesn’t exist.
A
takes for granted that proof that many people lack a characteristic does not establish that everyone lacks that characteristic
This is valid reasoning, so it can’t be the flaw in the argument.
B
takes for granted that the number of unsuccessful attempts to prove a claim is the only factor relevant to whether one should accept that claim
This can’t be the flaw, because the fortune-teller introduces her citation of the number of attempts as a factor with “furthermore.” This indicates that the previous sentence provided a distinct factor (namely, that ESP has not been scientifically disproven).
C
overlooks the possibility that some of the scientific studies mentioned reached inaccurate conclusions about whether ESP exists
There’s no particular reason to think that the scientific studies reached inaccurate conclusions.
D
takes for granted that there is no scientific way to determine whether some individuals possess ESP
This can’t be the flaw, since the author doesn’t take it for granted. If anything, she seems to not believe this, because she acknowledges that it has been proven that some self-proclaimed psychics are frauds.
E
takes for granted that the fact that a claim has not been demonstrated to be false establishes that it is true
The fortune-teller alleges that it has not yet been proven that a conclusion (the existence of ESP) is false, so therefore it must be true. But this is a mistake; future investigation could show that ESP doesn’t exist.
Summarize Argument
The author concludes that the U.S. practice of making certain pesticides that are banned for use in the U.S. and sending those pesticides to other countries greatly increases the health risk to people in the U.S. This is because those kinds of pesticides are often used on products that are imported into the U.S.
Notable Assumptions
The argument assumes that the stuff that is sprayed onto the products that are imported into the U.S. originally was made in the U.S. (This overlooks the possibility that even though the U.S. makes and exports certain pesticides, the U.S. made stuff isn’t used on the imported products. The stuff used on the imported products could be the same kind of pesticides, but made in other countries.)
A
Trace amounts of some of the pesticides banned for use in the United States can be detected in the soil where they were used 30 years ago.
The fact the pesticide is already in soil doesn’t impact whether the U.S. practice of making the pesticides and sending them to other countries hurts the U.S. We still have reason to think the U.S. practice of making/exporting the pesticide hurts people in the U.S.
B
Most of the pesticides that are manufactured in the United States and exported are not among those banned for use in the United States.
We still know that the banned pesticides are among the ones the U.S. makes and exports. There may be other pesticides that are not banned; the argument isn’t concerned with those.
C
The United States is not the only country that manufactures and exports the pesticides that are banned for use in the United States.
This raises the possibility that the pesticides used on the imported products are coming from another country, not the U.S. Multiple countries may be making the same kinds of banned pesticides. So, we cannot assume that stuff sprayed on the products had a U.S. origin.
D
The banned pesticides pose a greater risk to people in the countries in which they are used than to U.S. consumers.
Even if they pose a greater risk to people in other countries, that doesn’t suggest that might not also increase the health risk to people in the U.S.
E
There are many pesticides that are banned for use in other countries that are not banned for use in the United States.
The argument concerns the pesticides banned for use in the U.S. Whether those pesticides are banned in other countries has no bearing on the level of danger posed by those pesticides.