Nick: The Pincus family and their construction company have supported our university financially for decades. The university should not give the contract for building its new library to the family’s main competitor. Doing so would be disloyal to a friend of the university.

Pedro: Accepting a donation does not oblige the university to give the donor any special privileges. If it did, then it wouldn’t really be a charitable contribution. We should award the contract to whatever company makes the most competitive bid.

Speaker 1 Summary
Nick claims that the university should not grant a contract to the competitor of the Pincus family. This is because the Pincuses are long-time supporters of the university, which supports the sub-conclusion that awarding the contract to their competitor would be disloyal to one of the university’s friends. Nick is also assuming that the university should not be disloyal to its friends.

Speaker 2 Summary
Pedro states that the contract should go to whichever company makes the best bid. Why not consider the Pincuses’ donation history? Because for a donation to be charitable, it can’t come with special privileges—so, the past donations do not warrant special consideration.

Objective
We need to find a disagreement between Nick and Pedro. Their disagreement is about whether the university should consider the Pincus family’s past support when awarding contracts.

A
loyalty should sometimes be a consideration in making business decisions
Nick agrees with this, but Pedro doesn’t necessarily disagree. Pedro clearly thinks that loyalty shouldn’t be a consideration in this particular decision, but he may still think it should be considered in other business decisions.
B
the Pincus family and their construction company donated money for the purpose of acquiring special privileges from the university
Neither speaker makes this claim. Neither Nick nor Pedro brings up the Pincus family’s intentions when making donations, so we can’t know if they agree or disagree.
C
the acceptance of donations places a university under a special obligation to the donor
Nick agrees with this, but Pedro disagrees, so this is their disagreement. Nick argues that accepting donations means the university is obligated to be loyal to the donors. Pedro states that donations do not carry any special privileges.
D
the university should be more grateful to donors with a long history of financial support than to new donors
Neither Nick or Pedro states an opinion about this. The speakers are only talking about one particular long-time donor; they never make a comparison with more recent donors.
E
the Pincus family’s construction company did not make the most competitive bid
Neither speaker actually expresses a position on this point. First, Nick doesn’t talk about competition at all. Second, Pedro talks about competition but doesn’t make a claim about which bid was most competitive or whether the university chose right.

19 comments

From 1880 to 2000 Britain’s economy grew fivefold, but emissions of carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas, were the same on a per capita basis in Britain in 2000 as they were in 1880.

Summary

From 1880 to 2000 Britain’s economy grew fivefold, but emissions of carbon dioxide were the same on a per capita basis in Britain in 2000 as they were in 1880.

Notable Valid Inferences

Economic growth does not always increase per capita emissions of carbon dioxide.

A
A decrease in per capita emissions of carbon dioxide never occurs during a period of economic growth.

Could be true. To say that this never occurs is too extreme. It is possible that between 1880 and 2000, per capita emissions fluctuated only to become the same at the end of the stated time period.

B
Countries whose economies are growing slowly or not at all usually cannot afford to enact laws restricting carbon dioxide emissions.

Could be true. The information in the stimulus is limited to the country of Britain. Britain’s economy grew fivefold between 1880 and 2000, and we cannot assume that this rate is slow for economic growth.

C
Economic growth initially leads to increased per capita emissions of greenhouse gases, but eventually new technologies are developed that tend to reduce these emissions.

Could be true. It is possible that between 1880 and 2000, per capita emissions fluctuated only to become the same at the end of the stated time period.

D
As the world’s population grows, emissions of greenhouse gases will increase proportionately.

Could be true. The information in the stimulus is restricted to the country of Britain. It is possible that the world’s population experienced a different overall outcome from economic growth than Britain.

E
Economic growth always increases household income and consumption, which inevitably increases per capita emissions of carbon dioxide.

Must be false. The stimulus tells us that even though Britain’s economy grew, per capita emissions remained the same. Therefore, it is not always the case that economic growth increases per capita emissions.


8 comments

Modest amounts of exercise can produce a dramatic improvement in cardiovascular health. One should exercise most days of the week, but one need only do the equivalent of half an hour of brisk walking on those days to obtain cardiovascular health benefits. More vigorous exercise is more effective, but a strenuous workout is not absolutely necessary.

Summary

Modest amounts of exercise can greatly improve heart health. You should exercise most days, but the equivalent of just 30 minutes of brisk walking on those days is enough to see benefits. More intense exercise works better, but a hard workout isn’t required.

Strongly Supported Conclusions

Because they’re more effective than modest exercise, strenuous workouts most days of the week can also dramatically improve heart health.

Improving heart health does not require strenuous exercise or time-consuming workouts.

A
Having a strenuous workout most days of the week can produce a dramatic improvement in cardiovascular health.

Strongly supported. Modest amounts of exercise most days of the week can dramatically improve heart health. Strenuous exercise is more effective than modest exercise. So, having a strenuous workout most days of the week can dramatically improve heart health.

B
Doing the equivalent of an hour of brisk walking two or three times a week generally produces dramatic improvements in cardiovascular health.

Unsupported. We’re told that doing the equivalent of 30 minutes of brisk walking most days of the week (at least 4 days) can improve heart health. We don’t know that doing the equivalent of an hour of brisk walking 2-3 times a week could produce the same improvements.

C
It is possible to obtain at least as great an improvement in cardiovascular health from doing the equivalent of half an hour of brisk walking most days of the week as from having a strenuous workout most days of the week.

Anti-supported. We’re told that strenuous exercise is more effective than modest exercise. So we cannot conclude that it’s possible to obtain at least as great an improvement in heart health from modest exercise as from strenuous exercise.

D
Aside from exercise, there is no way of improving one’s cardiovascular health.

Unsupported. We know that exercise can improve cardiovascular health, but we do not know that it’s the only way to improve cardiovascular health.

E
To obtain a dramatic improvement in one’s cardiovascular health, one must exercise strenuously at least occasionally.

Anti-supported. We’re told that modest amounts of exercise can produce a dramatic improvement in cardiovascular health and that although more vigorous exercise is more effective, “a strenuous workout is not absolutely necessary.”


32 comments

A recently completed study of several hundred subjects, all of approximately the same age, showed that those who exercised regularly during the study were much less likely to die during the study. This indicates that exercise can actually increase one’s life span.

Summarize Argument: Phenomenon-Hypothesis
The author concludes that exercise can increase life span. This is because the subjects in a study who exercised were less likely to die during the study than the subjects who didn’t exercise.

Notable Assumptions
The author assumes that there was no prior correlation between people who exercised and were in good health, or people who didn’t exercise and were in poor health. If people on the verge of dying didn’t exercise given their health condition, then the study wouldn’t indicate anything about the effects of exercise.

A
The subjects who did not exercise regularly during the study tended to have diets that were more unhealthy.
This weakens the author’s argument by bringing in a third factor: diet. Perhaps the people who didn’t die were saved by their diets rather than by exercise.
B
The subjects who did not exercise regularly during the study tended to blame their lack of exercise on a lack of time.
This doesn’t do much. Perhaps those people had little time because they were stressed about other things, and the stress ended up damaging their health.
C
A large number of the deaths recorded were attributable to preexisting conditions or illnesses.
This severely damages the author’s argument. People died because of their preexisting conditions rather than their lack of exercise.
D
Whether or not a given subject was to exercise during the study was determined by the researchers on a random basis.
There was no connection between prior health and exercise. This defends against the obvious weakener that only already-healthy people were exercising.
E
A person who exercises regularly is probably doing so out of concern for his or her own health.
We don’t care what motivated the participants to exercise.

8 comments