Chin: It’s impossible to demonstrate anything to the satisfaction of all skeptics. So long as the cultural elite remains closed-minded to the possibility of extrasensory perception, the popular media reports, and thus public opinion, will always be biased in favor of such skeptics.
A
extrasensory perception is a real phenomenon
B
extrasensory perception, if it were a real phenomenon, could be demonstrated to the satisfaction of all skeptics
C
skeptics about extrasensory perception have a weak case
D
the failure of the general public to believe in extrasensory perception is good evidence against its existence
E
the general public believes that extrasensory perception is a real phenomenon
Psychologist: People tend to make certain cognitive errors when they predict how a given event would affect their future happiness. But people should not necessarily try to rid themselves of this tendency. After all, in a visual context, lines that are actually parallel often appear to people as if they converge. If a surgeon offered to restructure your eyes and visual cortex so that parallel lines would no longer ever appear to converge, it would not be reasonable to take the surgeon up on the offer.
Summarize Argument
The psychologist concludes that people shouldn’t try to eliminate the tendency to make cognitive errors when predicting how events will impact their future happiness. He supports this with an analogy, saying that people often mistakenly see parallel lines as converging, and, he claims, it wouldn't be reasonable to accept surgery to fix this visual error.
Describe Method of Reasoning
The psychologist supports his conclusion that a certain action would be unreasonable by presenting an analogous scenario in which another action would also be unreasonable. Just as trying to eliminate certain cognitive errors would be unreasonable, so would trying to eliminate certain visual errors, like mistakenly seeing parallel lines as converging.
A
attempts to refute a claim that a particular event is inevitable by establishing the possibility of an alternative event
The psychologist doesn’t refute a claim that a certain event is inevitable. Instead, he concludes that people shouldn’t try to do something. Also, he uses an analogy, not the possibility of an alternative event, to support his argument.
B
attempts to undermine a theory by calling into question an assumption on which the theory is based
The psychologist doesn’t undermine a theory at all, nor does he question any assumptions. Instead, he uses an analogy to arrive at a prescriptive conclusion.
C
argues that an action might not be appropriate by suggesting that a corresponding action in an analogous situation is not appropriate
The psychologist argues that eliminating certain cognitive errors might not be appropriate. He supports with an analogy, suggesting that a corresponding action— eliminating certain visual errors— is also not appropriate (or reasonable).
D
argues that two situations are similar by establishing that the same action would be reasonable in each situation
By using an analogy to support his conclusion, the psychologist does assume that two situations are similar. But he uses this analogy to conclude that two different actions— eliminating cognitive errors and eliminating visual errors— would be unreasonable in each situation.
E
attempts to establish a generalization and then uses that generalization to argue against a particular action
The psychologist does argue against a particular action, but he doesn’t do so by establishing a generalization. Instead, he uses an analogy to argue against a particular action.
Council member: The profits of downtown businesses will increase if more consumers live in the downtown area, and a decrease in the cost of living in the downtown area will guarantee that the number of consumers living there will increase. However, the profits of downtown businesses will not increase unless downtown traffic congestion decreases.
Summary
The stimulus can be diagrammed as follows:
Notable Valid Inferences
If cost of living in the downtown area decreases, the profits of downtown businesses will increase.
If cost of living in the downtown area decreases, traffic congestion will decrease.
If more consumers live in the downtown area, traffic congestion will decrease.
A
If downtown traffic congestion decreases, the number of consumers living in the downtown area will increase.
Could be false. “Congestion decrease” is not a sufficient condition for “consumers increase”, so there’s no reason to believe that a congestion decrease would cause an increase in the number of consumers in the area. Maybe people like sitting in traffic!
B
If the cost of living in the downtown area decreases, the profits of downtown businesses will increase.
Must be true. As shown below, by chaining the conditional claims, we see that “cost of living decreases” is a sufficient condition of “profits increase.”
C
If downtown traffic congestion decreases, the cost of living in the downtown area will increase.
Could be false. “Congestion decrease” is not a sufficient condition for “cost of living increase”, so there’s no reason to believe that a congestion decrease would cause an increase in the cost of living in the area.
D
If downtown traffic congestion decreases, the cost of living in the downtown area will decrease.
Could be false. “Congestion decrease” is not a sufficient condition for “cost of living decrease”, so there’s no reason to believe that a congestion decrease would cause a decrease in the cost of living in the area.
E
If the profits of downtown businesses increase, the number of consumers living in the downtown area will increase.
Could be false. “Profits increase” is not a sufficient condition for “more consumers”, so there’s no reason to believe that a profit increase would cause an increase in the number of consumers living in the area.