Summarize Argument: Phenomenon-Hypothesis
Older people are more likely to have a disability, yet adults over 55 are less likely to receive disability benefits the older they are. The author believes this is because jobs have recently become more likely to offer disability benefits.
Notable Assumptions
The author assumes no other explanations account for older people being less likely to receive disability benefits, either in addition to or as an alternative for the phenomenon described.
A
The treatment of newly incurred disabilities is more successful now than in the past in restoring partial function in the affected area within six months.
This is irrelevant without knowing when most people incur their disabilities. If most people over 75 developed their disabilities before age 65, for example, then this makes the phenomenon more surprising, rather than explain it.
B
Some people receive disability benefit payments under employers’ insurance plans, and some receive them from the government.
This states no difference between the government and employers’ insurance plans that would explain why older people are less likely to receive disability benefits. It doesn’t say that either payer is less generous and more likely to serve older people.
C
Medical advances have prolonged the average lifespan beyond what it was 20 years ago.
This would explain more people living past 75, but not why fewer of them receive disability benefits. It doesn’t say those medical advances have made older people less likely to suffer a disability.
D
For persons receiving disability benefit payments, those payments on average represent a smaller share of their predisability income now than was the case 20 years ago.
This doesn’t offer an alternative explanation. The author does not say a person’s predisability income impacts their chances of receiving disability payments.
E
Under most employers’ plans, disability benefit payments stop when an employee with a disability reaches the usual retirement age of 65.
This offers an alternative explanation. Older people are less likely to receive payments because they are more likely to have lived past the retirement age.
Summarize Argument: Phenomenon-Hypothesis
The argument concludes that people become more unwilling to discuss personal finances with strangers over the phone throughout their lifetime. The author bases his conclusion on a survey that found that older people are more unwilling to discuss their personal finances with a surveyor over the phone than younger people are.
Identify and Describe Flaw
Our argument uses survey results about different generations of people to support a claim about how people change as they age. This conclusion doesn’t follow; if you want to make a claim about how people’s behaviors change throughout their lives, you should interview the same people at different points in their lives. All that the survey results tell us is how different generations differ behaviorally, not how one generation will change in the future.
A
offers no evidence that the individuals queried would have responded differently had they been asked the same questions in years prior to the survey
This addresses the issue of change over time. If we don’t know how the answers of the people surveyed would change over time, we cannot draw the conclusion about how anyone’s behavior from earlier in their life to later.
B
fails to specify the exact number of people who were telephoned as part of the survey
Knowing the exact number of people telephoned does not help our argument—it would not help us establish a connection between the older and younger people surveyed and how people change throughout their lives.
C
assumes without warrant that age is the main determinant of personal income and savings levels
Even if it were untrue that age was the main determinant of these factors, that would not damage the argument. Our argument is not focused on the level of income or savings, but rather on how forthcoming people of certain ages are with this information.
D
assumes from the outset what it purports to establish on the basis of a body of statistical evidence
This “cookie-cutter” answer choice refers to circular reasoning, which is not present in this argument. The study would have had to assume that people become less likely to share this information as they age. Since this was not the case, we can reject this answer choice.
E
provides no reason to believe that what is true of a given age group in general is also true of all individuals within that age group
Our argument is concerned with the difference between different age groups and how people change throughout their lives, not with whether or not generalizations are universally true within a group. This answer choice misses the mark.
Summary
The argument concludes that people in a certain region who have jobs are not reducing their consumer spending in response to widespread layoffs in the area. The argument supports this with the claim that these people with jobs are not saving more money than usual.
Notable Assumptions
The argument assumes that if the people in question were reducing their consumer purchases, then they would save more money. In other words, that there isn’t some third way that people might be spending their money, leading them to reduce consumption while also not saving more.
A
If people in the region who continue to be employed have debts, they are not now paying them off at an accelerated rate.
Debts would be a third way to spend money, meaning that people might not be saving more even though they’re reducing their purchases. So in order for the argument to function, it must assume that debt repayment hasn’t suddenly increased.
B
People in the region who continue to be employed and who have relatives who have lost their jobs commonly assist those relatives financially.
Assisting relatives financially could be a way to use money that involves neither consumption nor saving—but the argument’s assumption is that something like that isn’t happening. So to assume that this is happening isn’t necessary at all.
C
If people in the region who have lost jobs get new jobs, the new jobs generally pay less well than the ones they lost.
The argument is only concerned with people who “still have their jobs” and not people who are having financial difficulties due to losing their jobs, so this is an irrelevant consideration.
D
People in the region who continue to be employed are pessimistic about their prospects for increasing their incomes.
How people with jobs feel about their likelihood of making more money is irrelevant to the question of whether or not they’re currently cutting back on consumer purchases.
E
There exist no statistics about sales of goods in the region as a whole.
The argument is trying to infer information about sales of goods from statistics about saving habits. Whether actual statistics about sales of goods exist is irrelevant to that inference.
Summarize Argument
The argument concludes that not every type of ski injury has seen decreasing numbers, although the number of ski injuries has decreased overall. This is supported with the statistic that knee injuries, which used to represent 11 percent of ski injuries, now represent 16 percent.
Identify and Describe Flaw
This is a cookie-cutter flaw of confusing amounts and percentages. The argument’s conclusion is about the amount of different types of ski injuries, but the evidence is only about percentages. However, it’s entirely possible that there are fewer knee injuries now, even though they account for a greater percentage of all ski injuries—for example, because the number of other injury types has just decreased more.
A
It fails to allow for there being ski injuries other than broken legs, ankle injuries, and knee injuries.
The argument only uses these three types of injuries as examples, it never claims that they’re the only types of ski injuries.
B
It infers disparate effects from the same single cause.
The argument is only concerned with one cause and one effect: the cause is improvements in ski equipment, and the effect is a lower number of ski injuries.
C
It ignores the possibility that the number of skiers has increased over the past 20 years.
The argument states that ski injuries have decreased by 50 percent over the past 20 years, regardless of the number of skiers. Also, the percentage statistics the argument cites are unaffected by the number of skiers.
D
It assumes that an increase in the proportion of knee injuries rules out a decrease in the number of knee injuries.
The argument concludes that certain types of injuries have not decreased in number, and uses knee injuries as an example based on an increased percentage. This ignores the possibility that there are still fewer knee injuries, even though the percentage is higher.
E
It proceeds as though there could be a greater decrease in injuries in each category of injury than there is in injuries overall.
The argument never acts as though every category of injury could see a greater decrease than the overall decrease.