Q2 - Artist: Almost everyone in this

[zainrizvi]

...
Can't believe I got this question wrong

I saw both (B) and (E) as flaws. Then I picked blindly

How is (E) not a flaw?


I think I used my late LR stage mindset too early. There is no need to make a distinction as it says in (E) because making the leap from hope to make a living as an artist -> wanting to be an artist is very, very small. Making the leap from artists sample being representative on the basis of who he knows is horrendous.

[noah]

It's tough to struggle (or make a careless error) on an early question, but it's happened to all of us!

The conclusion of this argument is that most folks in the country want to be an artist. Why? Because everyone the person making this argument knows hopes to be an artist. Hmm - sort of fishy, especially since the guy making this argument is an artist himself! Perhaps he only knows folks that want to be artists, but most people feel differently. (D) summarizes this flaw in the argument.

(A) is tempting, but the premise and conclusion are different - one is about who the author knows, the other is about everyone in the country.

(B) is a part-to-whole flaw, but this argument doesn't have that (it's a sample issue in this argument). An argument with that flaw would sound like "every student in the school can't afford to pay for a tuba for the school band, so the school as a whole can't afford it."

(C) is incorrect since there's no premise saying a view is widely held - the author concludes something like that!

(E) is tempting - I can see why you might choose it. The issue is, do we need to make that distinction? While those two wants might be slightly different (and I'd say they're not, in this argument), they're close enough.

[mornincounselor]

(E) is tempting - I can see why you might choose it. The issue is, do we need to make that distinction? While those two wants might be slightly different (and I'd say they're not, in this argument), they're close enough.

I think we do. Here's a similar argument:

C| Almost everyone in this country [wants to have an attractive mate] even if [they may become poor as a result]

P1 After all, just about everyone I know hopes to someday [have an attractive mate] even if they [are currently poor]

If that were our argument I would say there's a big distinction between hoping for something while being poor vs being willing to become poor to obtain the desired result.

Where am I going wrong? Is my example argument not on point?

[rinagoldfield]

Thanks for your post, mornincounselor . I see what you’re saying. Ultimately, the big flaw here is the shift from “everyone I know” to “everyone in this country.” That’s a much bigger shift than the one described in (E).

However, to get into the weeds, let’s look at the shift described in (E). The conclusion describes hoping to be an artist while maybe working a day job. The premise describes hoping to make a living as an artist while working a day job. The language is slightly different, I hear you. However, note that “making a living as an artist” includes the phrase “as an artist”… which implies that whoever is making the living is functioning as an artist. We have to accept this shift as minor and (fairly) warranted.

Another shift here is that the premise discusses painters, musicians, or poets… are they artists? The argument never says so. However, we accept this shift because it’s common sense.

The goal on an LR question is not to fixate on every minor language shift, but rather to find the major logical flaws.

[JeffW669]

For this question, I was thrown off because I identified two flaws.
1) The obvious one: Unrepresentative sample.
2) The less obvious one: An order of operations issue. Wanting (to be an artist, despite working a side job) is not the same as (wanting, despite working a side job), to be an artist. Basically, even if the artist's sample was representative, working a menial job in the present while hoping to "make a living as an artist" in the future is different from hoping to "be an artist" in the future who also works a menial job in the future.

Because I spent more time identifying and thinking about the second flaw, my mind somehow decided it was the more important flaw, so I skipped over D, which corresponded to flaw 1, and then did some mental gymnastics to convince myself that E corresponded to flaw 2, and thus chose E.

Looking back, E is close, but ultimately does not correspond to flaw 2, whereas D was the obvious and easy answer. I think if the distinction in E was "wanting to be an artist" vs. "wanting to make a living as an artist", it would be closer to correct, but "wanting to be an artist" vs. "making a living as an artist" ultimately isn't close enough to the needed distinction for flaw 2.

[sclw64]

I think for E, the author assumes they are equal, so there is no need to make a distinction. The right answer might be 'fails to consider the ability to make the distinctiin between ......'