Q23 - when investigators

[cvfh17]

i get lost with the argument. any help please?

[sumukh09]

This is a principle question where our job is to find a principle that solidifies the reasoning in the stimulus. In order to find a principle that applies to the case, we need to isolate the core from the argument to make our task a little easier.

Core:

journalists accepted information naively from director and stated the number of people helped as a fact ---> journalists are as much to blame as the directors for incorrectly overstating the number of people the charity helped


So given the core you want to come up with some sort of principle that would allow you to distribute the blame evenly between the journalist and director.

C does this by saying the journalists are just as responsible for the deceptive facts as the director since they did not verify the numbers given to them by the director and simply took them as facts.

[WaltGrace1983]

Just wanted to chime in with more analysis of the answers here.

(A) The big problem with this one is that it doesn't bridge the gap between the premise and the conclusion. What do we conclude? We conclude that the journalists were as much to blame as the director. Why? Because the journalists accepted the director's statements and just reported them as facts (when they turned out to not be so). Yet (A) never says anything about culpability. Who is responsible? We don't know. In addition to that, we also get something about "anyone who works for a charitable organization." Do the journalists work for the charity? We don't really know - though we may deduce that they do not. Eliminate.

(B) talks about "knowingly" aiding a liar. Did the journalists knowingly do this? The stimulus gives no indication that they knowingly did anything! Also, all this answer choice does is conclude that the person who aids the liar is also a liar. Great. However, what does that mean about culpability? Eliminate.

(D) Once again, did the journalists lie? We don't really know but it doesn't seem to be the case that naively reporting alleged "facts" constitutes lying. Either way, do we know that the journalists did this to "advance his or her own career?" Nope! Furthermore, this answer choice has a big red flag by saying that the people who do all of this stuff are "more deserving" of the blame! The conclusion says that they are "as much to blame!" This answer choice sucks. Eliminate.

(E) "Less deserving." Once again, the argument concludes that two parties are just as much to blame. We could eliminate this based on the "less deserving" part alone. However, we can also eliminate it based on the idea of trying to "conceal" the wrongdoing...the journalists never tried to "conceal" anything.

[mimimimi]

I understand why other choices are wrong, but I find (C) too strong.

"...no less responsible for the consequences of that story than anyone else is."

Anyone? ! Isn't that too strong?

[jewels0602]

I understand why other choices are wrong, but I find (C) too strong.

"...no less responsible for the consequences of that story than anyone else is."

Anyone? ! Isn't that too strong?

It seems to be a sufficient type question with a principle twist-- with sufficient questions, it's totally ok for it to be too strong, as long as it leads us to the conclusion (which is that journalists are just as much to blame as the director).