A
People who use mnemonic devices to help remember their passwords are able to easily remember passwords that are long, complex, and unpredictable.
B
User accounts that are automatically locked after a certain number of incorrect password guesses are usually unlocked after a reasonable time.
C
When a password is written down, it increases the chances that someone will be able to use that password to gain unauthorized access to the user’s account.
D
When users who forget their passwords are locked out of their own accounts, they must often go through a complicated process in order to have their accounts unlocked.
E
Passwords that conform to rules of length, complexity, and unpredictability are no harder to guess than passwords that do not conform to such rules.
Lipton: That’s like arguing that we shouldn’t worry about enforcing laws since, in the larger scheme of things, laws change and nations come and go. But of course it is good that laws are enforced.
A
grammar violations should be resisted
B
a language can evolve into an entirely new language
C
users of a language can easily adapt to changes in that language
D
people only rarely violate grammar rules
E
languages evolve through an accumulation of changes in usage and rules
Student: My university recently enacted new penalties for drinking alcohol in on-campus student housing. But the university has attempted to curb on-campus drinking many times in the past, and these attempts have never been successful. Thus, these new penalties are bound to be just as ineffective.
Summarize Argument
The student concludes that the new penalties for on-campus drinking will be ineffective. He supports this by saying that past attempts to curb on-campus drinking were ineffective.
Identify and Describe Flaw
The student draws an analogy between the new efforts to stop on-campus drinking and the past efforts, claiming the new efforts will be just as ineffective. He assumes that the new and past efforts are relevantly similar, ignoring the possibility that there may be important differences that could make the new efforts more successful.
A
fails to specify what new penalties the university enacted for drinking alcohol in on-campus student housing
The student doesn’t need to explain what the new penalties are. Instead, he needs to explain why they’ll be ineffective. Even if he did specify them, his argument would still be flawed because he assumes the new penalties will fail simply because past efforts did.
B
overlooks the possibility that many students did not drink alcohol in on-campus student housing even before the new penalties were enacted
The student doesn’t overlook this possibility. Many students at the university may not drink at all; the penalties only target those students who do drink in on-campus housing.
C
presumes, without providing justification, that students’ preferred location for drinking alcohol is on-campus student housing
The student doesn’t assume that students prefer to drink on campus, just that some students do drink on campus. Whether students prefer to drink elsewhere is irrelevant; the penalties only target on-campus drinking.
D
overlooks the possibility that the new penalties are relevantly different from the university’s past attempts to curb on-campus drinking
The student assumes that the new penalties are relevantly similar to the university’s past attempts to curb on-campus drinking. If they’re relevantly different, he can’t conclude that the new ones will be ineffective simply because the old ones were.
E
fails to consider whether the new penalties will have any other positive consequences besides reducing drinking in on-campus student housing
It doesn't matter whether the new penalties have other positive consequences. The student only addresses whether these penalties will effectively reduce drinking in on-campus housing.