Q23 - Paralleled flaw reasoning

[jionggangtu]

Why is A wrong and E correct?

Thanks.

[timmydoeslsat]

The flaw in the stimulus is one of inferring that something does not exist simply because of a lack of evidence.

Answer choice A is a temporal flaw. Because something has been true in the past or the present is not sufficient justification that this thing will continue to occur in the future.

Answer choice B is a whole to part flaw. Just because something is true of a whole does not mean it must also be true of each of its parts.

Answer choice C could be considered an unrepresentative sample among other things. It definitely is not one of inferring something does not exist due to lack of evidence.

Answer choice D has a huge concept shift of building repair to that of education. Not the same flaw.

Answer choice E is our answer. Inferring that the book does not have mention the critic due to a lack of evidence of such.

[Mab6q]

I saw C as being wrong for a different reason. The author seems to assume that not writing about current events equates to becoming apathetic towards current events. However I do agree that it does present an unrepresentative sample as well. E is best choice here.

[uhdang]

This is a Parallel Flawed Reasoning Question.

@ the first thin that popped into my mind when I looked at the stimulus is that this is assuming this independent audit as the only means to find the problem. I kind of though of it as "exaggerating" the method.

When looking at flawed parallel reasoning questions, the first thing and the most important thing that should match is the flaw. However, since this type of flaw is hard to be named as a certain flaw, I just had an abstract structure in my mind to remind myself: that exaggerating what you did.

Once you find the flaw, there are several elements you can look for to see if they match, and they are 1) reasoning, 2) conclusion, 3) premise and 4) validity. Validity sort of covers the flaw, so the other three could be looked for after matching the flaw.

============= Here are the answer analyses ==============

A) The first thing that came to me was the tense change. While the conclusion in the stimulus stayed as a present tense, this one changed to the future tense. Looking at the whole statement, we can figure that as opposed to "exaggerating" one means to cover all the other possible means in the stimulus to make a general statement, here, it uses a timeframe to make a general statement. So, this isn't it.

B) Looking at this answer choice, this is the "average" flaw. And disregarding "a large amount" as an issue, this is not really a flaw. When overall project budged exceeded and it consists of several subsets, at least one of those subsets HAS to increase to result in overall increase, even with other possible drops.

C) This was really tempting. In terms of generalizing, since attitudes about current events HAVE been generalized and a given group (a compilation) is EXAGGERATED to make a generalized statement, I thought this was really close. But, when comparing the premise and conclusion, targets with problems have been changed. While tax avoidance is the problem in both premise and conclusion in the stimulus, premise of the answer choice deals with "best student essays" while the conclusion talks about "students" in general. Not only this generalizes the problem, but it also generalized the target, or "problem." If this were to be true, the conclusion of this should be best students have been apathetic toward current events. But who knows? Maybe topic of those essays might not have been current events, but supporting facts and evidence might be full of current events?!

D) The biggest issue is the "standard." In stimulus, we are concerned with presence of the problem. It did not say that the problem was worse than the average or something. But D) gives a standard to compare the status. In order this to be correct, the conclusion should rather claim that "education provided to students in the district is BAD", which would be generalizing "needing the repair."

E) Just as in the stimulus, this generalizes inability to find the most prominent critic's name on the index to failing reference, or non-existence, of that critic. Maybe that critic's reference was in the book cover? Same flaw spotted.

[TiffanyH940]

First time post a reply here, hope it's helpful...

This is a tough match the flaw question, mostly because of the many tempting answer choices.

The stimulus commits two flaws. 1) it takes the conclusion about a sample to indicate something about the entire group. We know nothing about whether the audit look through a representative data/information that the firm supplies. 2) it takes the lack of evidence to prove a wrong as if wrong doesn't exist. Just because there's no indication of tax avoidance doesn't mean tax avoidance doesn't exist.

Then, it's time to look for answer choice that commits most similar flaw(s).

A can be eliminated because it's about a different flaw. A's flaw is taking something from the past and make conclusion about the future.

B can be quickly eliminated because it's also about a different flaw. B's flaw is assuming a certain characteristic pertaining to the group is also true for a certain individual that belongs to the group. Since the stimulus doesn't have any group/individual element, B is irrelevant.

C and D can be eliminated because both of their conclusions are different from the one in the stimulus. C concludes student's apathetic attitude based on an unrepresentative sample of student's essays. D concludes education quality of the district based on an unrepresentative sample of schools' need for building repair. Unlike the stimulus, which directly address the tax avoidance problem in the conclusion, C and D are not similar to it.

E is the correct answer because it commits both flaws. 1) index of the book is hardly a good and thorough representation of the entire book, much like the the firm's tax info that is supplied to the tax auditor 2) the examination hasn't found reference to critics doesn't mean it's not there, perhaps it's a careless examination or a quick scan.