Tom: No, it isn’t. Its yard isn’t really as big as it looks. Property lines in Prairieview actually start 20 feet from the street. So what looks like part of the yard is really city property.
Rolanda: But that’s true of all the other properties we’ve looked at too!
Summarize Argument
Rolanda starts by concluding that the house on Oak Avenue is the best one to rent. This is because it has a larger yard than any other house they’ve looked at in Prairieview.
Tom concludes that the house on Oak Avenue isn’t the best one to rent. This is based on Tom’s belief that the yard of that house isn’t as big as it looks. Tom’s support for this belief is that property lines in Prairieview start 20 feet from the street; that means what looks like part of the house’s yard is actually part of the city’s property.
Rolanda responds by pointing out that every other property also has its property line start 20 feet from the street.
Identify and Describe Flaw
Tom’s flaw is that he doesn’t realize his point about the property line applies to every property. So he hasn’t shown that the Oak Avenue house isn’t the largest they’ve seen.
A
He fails to take into account the possibility that there are advantages to having a small yard.
Tom doesn’t make any comment about small yards; there’s no indication that his thoughts about small yards have anything to do with why his reasoning is flawed.
B
He presumes, without providing justification, that property that belongs to the city is available for private use.
Tom doesn’t make any claims concerning private use. There’s no indication he has any belief about whether property belonging to the city can be used privately.
C
He improperly applies a generalization to an instance that it was not intended to cover.
There’s no indication that the generalization (the rule about property lines) isn’t supposed to cover the house on Oak Avenue.
D
He fails to apply a general rule to all relevant instances.
Tom fails to apply the general rule (about property lines) to all relevant instances (other houses in Prairieview). Tom’s point is less persuasive because other houses would also have a smaller yard, making the Oak Avenue house still have a larger yard than other houses.
E
He presumes, without providing justification, that whatever is true of a part of a thing is also true of the whole.
Tom doesn’t argue that something true of a part is true of a whole. He applies a rule about measuring property lines to the house on Oak Avenue.
Summarize Argument
Sigerson proposed an ethical guideline that prevents politicians from accepting campaign contributions from companies that do business with the city. The author concludes that this proposal is dishonest. This is based on the fact that Sigerson has taken contributions from such companies throughout his career in city politics.
Identify and Describe Flaw
The fact that Sigerson accepted contributions in the past doesn’t indicate that he believes his proposal shouldn’t apply to him or that his past acceptance of contributions is ethically acceptable. So there’s no basis to call the proposal “dishonest.” Sigerson may have taken advantage of the lack of a rule against accepting such contributions and now wants to ban those contributions for everyone going forward.
A
confuses a sufficient condition for adopting ethical guidelines for politicians with a necessary condition for adopting such guidelines
The argument isn’t based on conditional logic, so there’s no confusion of sufficient and necessary conditions.
B
rejects a proposal on the grounds that an inadequate argument has been given for it
The author doesn’t reject the proposal; she simply calls it dishonest. Also, the basis of the conclusion isn’t that there’s been an inadequate argument for the proposal. The basis is Sigerson’s past acceptance of contributions.
C
fails to adequately address the possibility that other city politicians would resist Sigerson’s proposal
Whether other politicians would resist the proposal is irrelevant, because the argument doesn’t concern the likelihood that the proposal will pass.
D
rejects a proposal on the grounds that the person offering it is unfamiliar with the issues it raises
The basis of the author’s conclusion isn’t that Sigerson is unfamiliar with the issues raised in the proposal. The basis is Sigerson’s own acceptance of contributions in the past.
E
overlooks the fact that Sigerson’s proposal would apply only to the future conduct of city politicians
In calling Sigerson’s proposal dishonest, the author seems to think that Sigerson’s past conduct is relevant. But Sigerson isn’t trying to cheat the rules; Sigerson has to follow the new guidelines, too, if the proposal is passed. So there’s no dishonesty in the proposal.
Summary
The author concludes that people who rely on the web when tring to diagnose their medical conditions are likely to do themselves more harm than good. Why?
Because those people can’t distinguish between what’s scientifically valid and scientifically invalid.
Because those people can’t distinguish between what’s scientifically valid and scientifically invalid.
Notable Assumptions
Notice that the idea of “doing themselves more harm than good” is a new concept that isn’t mentioned in the premise. So we know the author must assume something about what leads to someone doing themselves more harm than good.
To go further, we can anticipate a more specific connection taking the author from the premise to the conclusion. The author thinks that people who cannot discriminate between scientifically valid information and scientifically invalid information are likely to do themselves more harm than good. Or, in other words, in order to avoid being more likely to do more harm than good when relying on the web to diagnose oneself, one must be able to distinguish between scientifically valid and invalid information.
To go further, we can anticipate a more specific connection taking the author from the premise to the conclusion. The author thinks that people who cannot discriminate between scientifically valid information and scientifically invalid information are likely to do themselves more harm than good. Or, in other words, in order to avoid being more likely to do more harm than good when relying on the web to diagnose oneself, one must be able to distinguish between scientifically valid and invalid information.
A
People who browse the web for medical information typically do so in an attempt to diagnose their medical conditions.
Not necessary, because even if this isn’t typical, the argument applies to those people who do rely on the web to diagnose their medical conditions, however rare those people might be.
B
People who attempt to diagnose their medical conditions are likely to do themselves more harm than good unless they rely exclusively on scientifically valid information.
Necessary, because if it were not true — if people can rely on something besides scientifically valid information and still be unlikely to do themselves more harm than good — then the fact people can’t distinguish between scientifically valid and invalid information wouldn’t matter. Under the negation of (B), people who sometimes rely in invalid info because they can’t tell that it’s invalid won’t necessarily be likely to do themselves more harm than good.
C
People who have sufficient medical knowledge to discriminate between scientifically valid information and quackery will do themselves no harm if they rely on the web when attempting to diagnose their medical conditions.
Not necessary, because the argument concerns what happens to people who CANNOT distinguish between valid and invalid info. The author doesn’t need to think that people who CAN distinguish will do no harm to themselves by relying on the web.
D
Many people who browse the web assume that information is not scientifically valid unless it is clearly written.
The argument concerns people who rely on the web when trying to diagnose their medical conditions. But many people may browse the web who don’t rely on the web for diagnosis; the author doesn’t have to assume anything about those people.
E
People attempting to diagnose their medical conditions will do themselves more harm than good only if they rely on quackery instead of scientifically valid information.
The author believes that relying on the web for diagnosis when you can’t distinguish between scientifically valid and invalid info will make it likely that you’ll do yourself more harm than good. But the author doesn’t assume this kind of reliance is necessary to harm yourself. We might harm ourselves in other ways. This answer would be better if we replaced “only if” with “if.”