Plumb-Ace advertises that its plumbers are more qualified than plumbers at any other major plumbing firm in the region because Plumb-Ace plumbers must complete a very difficult certification process. Plumb-Ace plumbers may or may not be more qualified, but clearly the certification process is not very difficult, because nearly everyone who takes the written portion of the certification exam passes it very easily.

Summarize Argument
The author concludes that Plumb-Ace’s certification process is not difficult to pass because most people easily pass the written portion of the process.

Identify and Describe Flaw
This is a part-to-whole fallacy because, while the written portion of the certification process may be easy, the argument gives no information about the difficulty level of the rest of the process. In other words, it assumes that what is true of the part (the written portion) is also true of the whole (the entire certification process).

A
treats something that is necessary to make a certification process very difficult as if it were sufficient by itself to make the process very difficult
We’re not given a necessary condition for the certification process being difficult. The flaw is assuming that the written portion being easy is sufficient to prove that the entire certification process is easy.
B
takes for granted that plumbers are not qualified unless they complete some certification process
The argument makes no claim as to whether any plumbers are qualified or not; the conclusion is simply that the certification process is not difficult.
C
overlooks the possibility that plumbers at other firms in the region complete certification processes that are even easier than that completed by Plumb-Ace’s plumbers
This is irrelevant. The conclusion is simply that Plumb-Ace’s process is not difficult to pass. It doesn’t matter if other processes are even less difficult.
D
infers that a claim is false on the grounds that an inadequate argument has been given for that claim
The argument doesn’t cite Plumb-Ace’s lack of evidence for their claim, but instead cites evidence that the written portion of their process is easy to pass. The flaw is assuming that this speaks to the difficulty level of the entire process.
E
presumes that since one part of a whole lacks a certain characteristic, the whole must lack that characteristic as well
This describes the part-to-whole fallacy. The author only offers evidence that the written portion of the certification process is not difficult, yet claims that this is true of the entire process.

20 comments

Editor: When asked to name a poet contemporaneous with Shakespeare, 60 percent of high school students picked a twentieth-century poet. Admittedly, it is hard to interpret this result accurately. Does it show that most high school students do not know any poets of Shakespeare’s era, or do they just not know what “contemporaneous” means? However, either way, there is clearly something deeply wrong with the educational system.

Summarize Argument
The author concludes that there’s something deeply wrong with the educational system. This is based on the fact that 60% of high school students pick a modern poet when asked to identify a poet contemporaneous with Shakespeare. That response by students might show that high school students don’t know the meaning of “contemporaneous,” or that students don’t know other poets of Shakespeare’s ear. Either of these interpretations signifies that there’s something wrong with the education system.

Identify Argument Part
The referenced text is used as support for the author’s conclusion that there’s something wrong with the educational system.

A
as evidence that the educational system is producing students who are ignorant of the history of poetry
This misdescribes the author’s conclusion. She didn’t try to establish that students are ignorant of the history of poetry. She acknowledged that students might just be unaware of the meaning of “contemporaneous.”
B
as evidence of the ambiguity of some questions
This misdescribes the author’s conclusion. She didn’t try to establish that some questions are ambiguous.
C
to illustrate that research results are difficult to interpret
This misdescribes the author’s conclusion. She didn’t try to establish that research results are difficult to interpret. She acknowledged multiple interpretations of the students’ response, but argued that either interpretation shows something wrong with the educational system.
D
as evidence that the ambiguity of data should not prevent us from drawing conclusions from them
This misdescribes the author’s conclusion. She didn’t try to establish that ambiguous data shouldn’t prevent us from drawing conclusion. Rather, she interpreted the students’ response as showing something is wrong with the educational system.
E
as evidence that something is deeply wrong with the educational system
This accurately describes the role of the referenced text. It was used to support the conclusion that something id wrong with the educational system.

10 comments

Historian: One traditional childrearing practice in the nineteenth century was to make a child who misbehaved sit alone outside. Anyone passing by would conclude that the child had misbehaved. Nowadays, many child psychologists would disapprove of this practice because they believe that such practices damage the child’s self-esteem and that damage to children’s self-esteem makes them less confident as adults. However, no one disagrees that adults raised under that traditional practice were, on average, as confident as adults not so raised.

Summary

It was once traditional to make misbehaved children sit alone outside, and passersby would know they had misbehaved.

Many child psychologists don’t endorse this practice based on two beliefs: (1) that it damages children’s self-esteem; and (2) that damage to children’s self-esteem makes them less confident as adults.

Children raised with the traditional practice do not tend to have lower confidence levels than adults who never underwent this practice.

Very Strongly Supported Conclusions

Either the traditional practice didn’t tend to damage children’s self-esteem, or childhood self-esteem damage doesn’t harm adult confidence.

If the traditional practice damaged children’s self-esteem, childhood self-esteem damage doesn’t tend to harm adult confidence.

If childhood self-esteem damage harms adult confidence, the traditional practice didn’t tend to damage children’s self-esteem.

A
The beliefs of many present-day child psychologists about the consequences of loss of self-esteem are incorrect.

Unsupported. It’s possible that the child psychologists are wrong to believe that self-esteem loss leads to lowered confidence, but it’s also possible that the childrearing practice in question actually didn’t tend to cause self-esteem loss.

B
Some of the most confident adults, as well as some of the least confident adults, were raised under the traditional practice in question.

Unsupported. The stimulus only mentions average confidence levels, which tells us nothing about the margins. Maybe the most and least confident adults weren’t raised under the practice and the mid-confidence adults were, averaging out to the same confidence level in both groups.

C
With the traditional childrearing practice, passersby did not always make correct inferences about children’s behavior by observing them outdoors.

Anti-supported. We know that the children were made to sit outside because they misbehaved, and we also know that anyone passing by would conclude that the children sitting outside had misbehaved. Therefore, everyone passing by would make the correct inference!

D
The most confident adults are those who developed the highest level of self-esteem in childhood.

Unsupported. We know many psychologists think that childhood self-esteem loss leads to lower adult confidence, but we don’t know if that’s true. We also don’t know whether high self-esteem correlates with high confidence levels, or even if child psychologists believe it might!

E
If children’s loss of self-esteem makes them less confident as adults, then the traditional childrearing practice in question did not tend to cause significant loss of self-esteem.

Strongly supported. Since adults raised with the practice tend to be as confident as other adults, one of the psychologists’ claims must be wrong: either self-esteem loss doesn’t make children less confident as adults, or the practice didn’t tend to cause self-esteem loss.


39 comments