Q9 - Any announcement authorized by

[KakaJaja]

Hey, below is my understanding of the statement:

Premise: Authorized by department head (A)--> The Announcement is important (I). A-->I

Conclusion: Not authorized by department head --> The Announcement is not important. (~A --> ~I)

So it is a mistaken reversion.

I was considering D and E, but I didn't really understand what D is saying, so finally chose E.

Could anyone tell me what D means and Why E is false? Thank you for your help!

[demetri.blaisdell]

Thanks for your question, karenjiang2. I think your understanding of the stimulus and the flaw is very good. One small point: the way you wrote the flaw is an example of improper negation rather than a reversal. If you're in Canada, you're in North America. If you're not in Canada, you can't be in North America (seems pretty flawed).

(D) gives us exactly the flaw. The problem is assuming that because a department head's statements are important, they are the only statements that are important (so statements by others can't be). That is confusing a sufficient condition (dept. head issuing a statement) with a necessary condition (the only way for a statement to be important is for the dept. head to issue it).

The wrong answers:

(A) is out of scope. There's no reason why they have to define this for the argument to make sense.

(B) is also out of scope. It's true that the argument doesn't consider this but there's no reason why it should. In any case, are these statements important?

(C) might be true of the argument but it's not a flaw. The argument is about statements coming from non-dept. heads that aren't important. Who cares if the dept. head doesn't authorize any statements?

(E) is very general sounding. Don't let a vague answer choice scare you. Match it up! Did the argument fail to distinguish between the importance of someone's position and the importance of their announcement? NO! That's exactly what the argument was about. The department heads have an important position so their announcements are important. The only problem with the argument is that it improperly negated that statement. There's no ambiguity about who is important or what important means.

I hope this explanation helps. Those general-sounding answer choices can be scary. Stand your ground and match it up! Let me know if you have any more questions about this.

Demetri

[AngelaM778]

Can you please draw the diagram for this question? Thanks

[Misti Duvall]

Can you please draw the diagram for this question? Thanks

Sure! Only one of the premises is conditional, so I'll just summarize the rest of the argument:

P: authorized announcements --> important
P: some announcements not authorized
C: some announcements not important