Summarize Argument
Cognitive psychologists hypothesize that eyewitness misidentification is a common reason for wrongful convictions in criminal trials. No evidence is provided to support this claim.
Notable Assumptions
Cognitive psychologists must have some reason for believing that eyewitness misidentification is a common reason for wrongful convictions. For one thing, convictions must sometimes be based at least partially on eyewitness testimony.
A
Eyewitnesses’ reports are the most common reason for conviction.
Convictions often depend on eyewitness reports. Such reports are sometimes flawed, which lead to wrongful convictions.
B
In most crimes, eyewitnesses have seen the perpetrator only briefly, and people are generally poor at remembering the faces of people they have seen only briefly.
Eyewitnesses often don’t correctly remember perpetrators. This strengthens the claim that eyewitness misidentification happens frequently enough to be a “common reason” for mistaken convictions.
C
The shock of witnessing a crime makes it likely that a witness’s memory of the perpetrator’s face will be distorted.
Like (B), this strengthens the claim that eyewitness misidentification happens frequently enough to be a “common reason” for mistaken convictions. If a witness’s memory is distorted, they’re likely to misidentify the perpetrator.
D
Judges often instruct juries about those circumstances under which testimony of eyewitnesses is fallible.
This weakens the cognitive psychologists’ claim. Juries are aware eyewitness testimony is likely to be mistaken in certain situation, so they likely don’t give eyewitness accounts great weight when making decisions.
E
Jurors are very likely to believe eyewitnesses who appear confident, and unreliable witnesses usually appear very confident.
Mistaken eyewitness accounts are accepted by jurors, who factor these into their decisions. These accounts hold even greater weight since jurors believe confident eyewitnesses, and unreliable eyewitnesses often appear confident.
Stephanie: To be worthy of public trust, it is not enough, as you suggest, that one simply have varied experience. Such a person would not necessarily be worthy of public trust.
Summarize Argument: Counter-Position
Ruth concludes that to become a politician, someone should be required to have diverse experiences. This is because the more diverse one’s experiences, the more one understands the need for compromise.
Stephanie concludes that to be worthy of public trust, it is not enough (as she believes Ruth suggests), to have varied experience. This is because a person with diverse experiences is not necessarily worthy of public trust.
Identify and Describe Flaw
Stephanie misinterprets Ruth’s claim. Ruth said that to become a politician, one should be required to have diverse experiences. Ruth did not say that diverse experiences are sufficient to make one worthy of public trust.
A
The response simply asserts a point of view opposite to Ruth’s without giving reasons for it.
Stephanie’s point is not “opposite” to Ruth’s. Ruth’s claim is that diverse experiences should be necessary for becoming a politician. Stephanie’s point is not that diverse experiences shouldn’t be necessary; her point relates to a claim Ruth never made.
B
The response fails to provide evidence for its assumption that experience is not beneficial to the practice of politics.
Stephanie’s response does not assume that experience is not beneficial to politics. It might be beneficial; Stephanie simply believes diverse experiences are not sufficient to be worthy of public trust.
C
The response attributes to Ruth a view that is more vulnerable to criticism than any she actually expresses.
Ruth never said that diverse experiences are sufficient to be worthy of public trust. But Stephanie appears to think this is what Ruth said, and counters this misinterpreted version of Ruth’s claim. This version is easier to criticize than what Ruth actually said.
D
The response fails to make a needed distinction between personal experience and relevant professional experience.
We have no reason to think a distinction between personal and professional experience is “needed.” Both Ruth and Stephanie refer to diverse experiences. Whether such experiences need to involve personal and professional or just one of the two kinds is unknown.
E
The response fails to provide evidence for its assumption that flexibility is unimportant in the practice of politics.
Stephanie never assumes that flexibility is unimportant in politics. She simply says that diverse experiences are not sufficient to be worthy of public trust.
Summary
Cezanne’s work inspired twentieth-century modernist abstract artists. Most experts categorize Cezanne as an early modernist. Some say Cezanne was not an early modernist. Cachin says that Cezanne’s work is too often viewed from a modernist point of view.
Strongly Supported Conclusions
Cezanne’s work inspired modernist art. Some experts disagree about whether Cezanne was an early modernist himself.
A
Cézanne’s work is highly controversial.
This is unsupported because the debate is over how to categorize Cezanne, not over Cezanne’s work. Also, a few dissenters doesn’t support the notion of Cezanne being highly controversial.
B
Cézanne was an early creator of abstract art.
This is unsupported because there is disagreement regarding whether Cezanne was a creator of abstract art, and this question has not been resolved by the stimulus.
C
Cézanne’s work helped to develop modernism.
This is supported because the first sentence states that Cezanne inspired early modernists. While there is disagreement as to whether Cezanne was a modernist, there is no disagreement over whether Cezanne inspired other modernists.
D
Modern art owes less to Cézanne than many experts believe.
This is unsupported because the experts don’t disagree over how much modern art owes to Cezanne.
E
Cézanne’s work tends to be misinterpreted as modernist.
This is unsupported because some people say that Cezanne’s work is in fact modernist, and the author doesn’t help us determine whether those people are right or wrong.
Fisch: Those extinctions were caused by the dramatic shift to a harsher climate. The climate changed so rapidly that the species could not adapt.
Summarize Argument: Phenomenon-Hypothesis
Fisch hypothesizes that the extinctions were caused by a dramatic shift to a harsh climate. This shift happened too fast for the species to adapt.
Notable Assumptions
Fisch assumes that if species can’t adapt to climatic changes, those species will go extinct. She also assumes that the climate explanation is superior to the human migration explanation.
A
Similar species living in parts of the world where there were dramatic changes in climate did not become extinct.
This weakens Fisch’s argument. Climatic changes don’t invariably cause extinctions among the species in question.
B
Most of the mammals that survived in North America migrated from Asia at the same time as the humans migrated.
We don’t care when those mammals came to North America. We care about why they went extinct.
C
Human migration to other previously isolated areas has resulted in mammal species becoming extinct.
This supports the alternate hypothesis. We’re looking to strengthen Fisch’s hypothesis.
D
Archaeological evidence reveals that the human migrants had a number of different kinds of large weapons.
This weakly strengthens the alternate hypothesis. We’re looking to strengthen Fisch’s hypothesis.
E
The huge size of the mammals made it difficult for them to migrate the great distances to milder environments.
Large mammals went extinct because they couldn’t migrate quickly enough to milder climates after the climate shift. Since they also couldn’t adapt, they went extinct.