Sociologist: The claim that there

Answer choices

1. A

   Too Strong: most12% picked this

   presupposes that most newspaper stories are about

   Did this argument need to assume that at least 51% of newspaper stories are about violent crime? No, it just said "a large number", but that doesn't have to mean more than 50%. If 49% of stories were about violent crime, we would still say a large number of stories are about violent crime.

   12%
2. B

   Correct70% picked this

   presupposes the truth of the conclusion it is attempting

   Why this is right

   This describes the famous Circular reasoning flaw, in which the premise is a restatement of the conclusion or assumes the truth of the conclusion. The conclusion the author is attempting to establish is that "there is not a large number of violent crimes in our society". Does the author have a premise restating that "there is not a large number of violent crimes"? Yes. She has a premise that says "since violent crimes are very rare occurrences". If we were defending the claim she's attacking, we'd be like, "Whoa, whoa, whoa. Who said that violent crime is rare? We think that there are a large number of violent crimes? You can't act like it's a known fact that violent crime is rare." This still gets at the objection we had that the author was too sure of her Alternate Explanation for the large number of news stories about violent crime. Her illicit certainty that she's right about her explanation is a different way of saying that she's already "assumed the truth of her conclusion".

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

   70%
3. C

   Not an Assumption4% picked this

   assumes without warrant that the newspaper stories in question are

   The author actually assumes that the newspaper stories are biased in favor of reporting violent crimes whenever they happen, since the author thinks those stories are rare and thus eventful occurrences. If we're talking about some other bias (not a bias in favor of reporting it), then this answer is just out of scope, since there's no other type of bias even in this conversation.

   4%
4. D

   Wrong Flaw9% picked this

   mistakes a property of each member of a group taken as an individual for a property of the

   This describes the famous Part vs. Whole flaw, but this argument doesn't have anything resembling the structure of, Each part of X has trait Y. Therefore, X has trait Y.

   9%
5. E

   Wrong Flaw5% picked this

   uncritically draws an inference from what has been true in the past to what will be

   This describes a common "temporal flaw" in which author's assume that what was true in the past will be true again in the future, but this argument doesn't have anything to do with the past or the future. This argument is just about whether there are presently a large number of violent crimes in this society.

   5%