Q24 - Books that present a utopian future

[ohthatpatrick]

What does the Question Stem tell us?
Match the Flaw

Break down the Stimulus:
Conclusion: Gloomy books unlikely to be popular.
Evidence: Books that present a utopian future will always find enthusiastic buyers. Gloomy books do not present a utopian future.

Any prephrase?
Match the Flaw often features famous flaws, such as Conditionanl Logic Flaw, Part vs. Whole, Unproven vs. Untrue, Correlation vs. Causality, and bad Quantity Overlap inferences. Here, if we spot the conditional language of "will always", we'll start to anticipate Conditional Logic Flaw. Indeed, this author is saying "If utopian -> then popular", "Gloomy books = not utopian", therefore "Gloomy books = not popular". So we're looking for an illegal negation. We need one conditional premise "If A, then B". We need a fact that says "X is not A" and a conclusion that says "X is not B".

Correct answer:
C

Answer choice analysis:
A) We have a conditional: "if portrays happy -> tranquilizing effect". We would need to hear "This type of art doesn't portray happy. Thus, this type of art doesn't have tranquilizng effect". But we don't hear that.

B) No conditional in the premise.

C) "If involves complicated action/FX, then expensive to produce." We need "This thing does NOT have complicated action/FX. Thus, this thing is NOT expensive". And we DO get that!

D) No conditional in the premise.

E) "If self-employed, then fluctuating salaries." We need to hear "but these people are NOT self-employed. So they DON'T have fluctuating salaries." It delivers on the first half of that, but the conclusion half is completely off.

Takeaway/Pattern: Look out for famous flaws on Match the Flaw. Conditional Logic flaws have conditional lanaguage giveaways in the evidence "only, unless, will always, etc.". Correlation vs. Causality has correlation language giveaways in the evidence "Ppl who are X are more likely than others to be Y". Bad quantity overlap inferences have quantifier language giveaways "some, most, all".

#officialexplanation

[yihannah90]

Hi everyone!

Just out of curiousity, is the answer choice (E)--reproduced below--a valid argument? If so, how would you diagram it?

(E) All self-employed businesspeople have salaries that fluctuate with the fortunes of the general economy, but government bureaucrats are not self-employed. Therefore, not everyone with an income that fluctuates with the fortunes of the general economy is a government bureaucrat.


Thank you so much in advance!

[tommywallach]

Hey Yihannah,

(E) is a valid argument. I'm not sure why we'd diagram it (in a real test-taking environment), but we could look at the core:

Conclusion: Not everyone with an income that fluctuates with the economy is a government bureaucrat

Premise: All SEB have salaries that fluctuate
Government bureaucrats are not SEB

This tells us that some folks have salaries that fluctuate, and they're not government bureaucrats. That definitively leads to the conclusion.

Hope that helps!

-t

[ttunden]

so we have a Parallel Flaw here for Q24

We have from the first statement that books that replace suffering with harmonious ALWAYS find enthusiastic buyers


therefore since gloomy books are not of this genrie they are unlikely to be POPULAR

so I am the type that likes to intuitively understand the stimulus, I am not a diagrammer. Basically my prephase was, ok we have a definition of one genre and then next statement is ok opposite of genre/subject gets opposite result.

Basically looking for an answer choice that has similar reasoning.

A not the same flawed reasoning structure. If it said art that doesn't portray people as happy does opposite or something like that... then it would be good.

B not the same flawed reasoning structure. I am looking for a relationship to be posited then something opposite. B is not doing that.

C ahh now this is more like it. We know action movies have dangerous special effects scenes that are expensive 2 produce. Now we get the opposite that does not contain it so its cheap(opposite)

looks good.

D no not the same as the stimulus. we're looking for something opposite here.

E valid as above poster said

If anyone has any questions feel free to message me.

[JohnZ880]

Was a bit thrown off by this question because of the first statement. I didn't know how to relate the 1st and 2nd sentences because I thought it was a bit presumptuous to equate "enthusiastic buyers" with "popular."