Logical Reasoning

PT104 · S4 · Q7 If you know a lot about history

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If you know a lot about history, it will be easy for you to impress people who are intellectuals.

Conclusion

If you are not well versed in history due to a lack of reading, it will not be easy for you to impress intellectuals.

Evidence

If you know a lot about history, it will be easy for you to impress intellectuals (history → easy to impress). If you haven't read a lot of history books, you don't know much about history (no reading → no history).

Evaluate

The argument shows: no reading → no history. Then it leaps to: no history → not easy to impress. But the only premise we have is that history is sufficient for easy impressing — knowing history makes it easy. That doesn't mean history is the only path. Maybe other things make impressing intellectuals easy too. The argument treats a sufficient condition as if it were necessary.

Goal

The right answer should point out other paths to easily impressing intellectuals — i.e., that history isn't the only route.

The argument's reasoning is flawed because the argument overlooks the possibility that

Many intellectuals are not widely
Bad Objection
Whether intellectuals themselves are widely read in history doesn't affect the argument. The premise says knowing history makes impressing intellectuals easy — that holds whether or not the intellectuals know history. (Indeed, an intellectual who isn't a history buff might still be impressed by someone who is.) So pointing this out doesn't expose the actual flaw.
7% picked this
There are people who learn
Bad Objection
The argument doesn't claim history knowledge guarantees impressing intellectuals — it claims it makes the task easy. People who learn history but fail to impress intellectuals may not have actually used the easy route effectively. More importantly, the conclusion is about cases where you can't easily impress — counterexamples to the sufficiency direction don't expose its actual reasoning gap.
11% picked this
It is more important to
Out of Scope
The argument is about whether you can easily impress intellectuals, not about whether impressing intellectuals is the right goal. Whether non-intellectuals are more important to impress doesn't affect the argument's reasoning at all.
0% picked this
Correct
There are other easy ways
Why this is right
This is the flaw. The premise says history knowledge is sufficient for easily impressing intellectuals — but the argument concludes that no history means no easy impressing, which only follows if history is also necessary. (D) names exactly the overlooked possibility: there might be other easy ways. If a person can easily impress intellectuals through, say, philosophy, mathematics, or music, the argument's conclusion fails for them — even though they haven't read history.
Skill tested: Flaw · how this choice captures the argument's function is the move to repeat next time.
81% picked this
People who are not intellectuals
Out of Scope
The argument is about whether impressing intellectuals is easy. Whether non-intellectuals are easier or harder to impress is a separate question and has no effect on the argument's reasoning about intellectuals.
0% picked this

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