Q14 - City dog licensing records show that more cocker spani

[jgmartin82]

PT68, S2, Q14 (Evaluate the Argument)

E is correct.

We’ve got an Evaluate the Argument question. These are assumption family questions. In our search for the right answer, we’ll want to ask what would test an assumption. As it’s an assumption type question, let’s get started by find the core. It looks like this:

City dog licensing records show more C.S. in F.H. than anywhere else in the city

So

If we find a C.S. around F.H., it likely belongs to someone in F.H.

Can we spot any gaps here? It actually seems pretty tight. Maybe there’s a place near F.H. that has more C.S. but is technically in another city? Seems week, but sometimes we just need to boldly go into the answer choices armed only with our core. Here we go, remember we’re looking for something that tests an assumption.

(A) is out of scope. We want to know what to do with a cocker spaniel, who cares about other breeds?

(B) is out of scope. Same reasons as (A). Who cares about other breeds?

(C) is tempting; it seems to get at the number of dogs, but where they find these dogs has an unclear impact on our argument. Eliminate it.

(D) is tempting too because it brings up per capita. How does this impact our argument? We know they have more cocker spaniels in F.H. Does it matter if it’s one strange guy with thousands of cocker spaniels or a bunch of families with one cocker spaniel each? No. What matters is where most of the cocker spaniels live. If this doesn’t make sense, imagine this situation:

If you were to select a random person from our planet, from which country are they mostly likely to be? Likely you guessed India or China as they have by far the largest populations. Now if I told you that in fact Monaco has the largest population per square mile (about 50,000 people/square mile in case you’re curious), would you change your guess? Of course not.

Ultimately, answer (D) doesn’t have any impact on the fact that there are simply more cocker spaniels in F.H. Eliminate it.

(E) is our only remaining answer. Let’s look at the possible ways the answer choice could impact our outcome.

Let’s say that residents are more likely to license their dogs. Any effect? Well yes in fact. We decided that there were more dogs in F.H. based on the licensing records. It could be that people in other parts of the city have loads of cocker spaniels and just aren’t registering them. It puts our whole argument into question.

If they aren’t any more likely to license their dogs, that confirms the argument we’ve made. Knowing whether they are or aren’t more likely to do so is critical for the validity of the argument. For this reason (E) will help us evaluate the argument. In retrospect, the assumption here was that licensing records provide an accurate report of dog populations.

[contropositive]

Nice explanation. Just to add a point to D, "pets owned" is very unclear because we don't know if those pets are cocker spaniels. So its out of scope

[smsotolongo]

During my PT it didn't occur to me but during my review it did occur to me that there is an assumption or at least the argument is implying something. If we find a cocker spaniel it is likely from Flynn Heights because they have the most registered cocker spaniels. In order for that to hold up we have to assume that the records of not just cocker spaniels but other dogs are all accurate. If not we can not make this conclusion. Am I right?

[fadams]

Licensing records show that there are a lot of X registered to FH neighborhoods compared to other neighborhoods. So if you find a stray X near FH, it’s likely that it belongs to someone there.

But it doesn’t have to belong right? You can have something registered there but belong to someone else where. For example, you register your car in Toronto, but you park your car in Vancouver because you live there.

So the argument thinks that registered there EQUALS belonging to someone there. That doesn’t have to be true at all. But if you know how many cars that are registered belongs there, then it will help or weaken.
For example, if you say there are no cars that are registered there that belongs there, then you can’t say that it is likely to belong to someone there.
But if you say all the cars that are registered there DO belong to someone there, then yea, it is likely to belong to someone there.

[snoopy]

How important is the "straying factor"? I chose A because it mentioned that cocker spaniels were more likely to stray than other dogs from their owners. I know it mentions other dogs, but as with many Strengthen/Weaken answer choices, seemingly "out of scope" additions can sometimes not be out of scope. If you compare cocker spaniels were 50% more likely to stray than other dogs, then wouldn't that make you pause and think "maybe this cocker spaniel isn't from Flynn Heights?"

Would love some elaboration on this.