Large inequalities in wealth

Answer choices

1. A

   Bad Evidence Match5% picked this

   Consumer culture and an emphasis on technological innovation are a dangerous combination, since together they are uncontrollable and

   This doesn't really have two premises. It's saying, "This combo is bad, because this combo is uncontrollable and leads to irrational excess." There's no rule like "X depends on equal Y".

   5%
2. B

   Weak Conclusion Match7% picked this

   If Sara went to the bookstore every time her pocket was full, Sara would never have enough money to cover her living expenses, since

   This conclusion has a couple new concepts, "every time her pocket was full" and "not enough money to cover living expenses". The two premises, "She loves books and they're very expensive" would combine to allow us to say "if she had a lot of money, she would probably spend a lot of money on books". But we don't need to think that she'd spend so much that she wouldn't cover her living expenses. There's a huge gap between "I love X" and "I will spend so much money on X that I won't be able to pay my bills". There wasn't a huge gap when we combined "wealth = power" and "true democracy depends on equal power" to get "unequal wealth will undermine democracy".

   7%
3. C

   Bad Evidence Match7% picked this

   It is very difficult to write a successful science fiction novel that is set in the past, since historical fiction depends on historical

   The two premises here make a distinction between two things. The two premises in the original argument are connecting wealth and democracy through the overlapping concept of political power.

   7%
4. D

   Bad Evidence Match Bad Conclusion Match4% picked this

   Honesty is important in maintaining friendships. But sometimes honesty can lead to arguments, so it is difficult to predict the effect a particular honest

   The conclusion is a wishy-washy "difficult to predict", whereas the original conclusion was "X always threatens Y". The two premises here say that the same thing (honesty) has a positive and a negative, but the two premises in the original argument were not saying that political power had both a negative and a positive aspect.

   4%
5. E

   Correct77% picked this

   Repeated encroachments on one’s leisure time by a demanding job interfere with the requirements of good health. The reason is that good health depends

   Why this is right

   This one basically has all the ingredients we were looking for: X depends on equal Y. Z is the basis of Y. ----------------------- So, variations in Z will threaten X. Health depends on regular moderate exercise. Leisure time is required for regular exercise. --------------------- So, a scarcity a leisure time will threaten health. This one feels a bit different in that both premises read more like conditionals, whereas the premise "wealth is the basis of political power" reads more like a Volume Dial type claim (the more wealth, the more power). But the two premises connect leisure and health via an overlapping idea, "regular exercise" to get us to our conclusion, just as in the original argument the two premises connected wealth and democracy via the overlapping idea of "political power" to get to the conclusion.

   Skill tested: Parallel · how this choice captures the argument's function is the move to repeat next time.

   77%