Logical Reasoning

PT109 · S4 · Q13 Politician: The bill that makes

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Politician: The bill that makes using car phones while driving illegal should be adopted.

Conclusion

The bill to say "using car phone while driving is illegal" should be adopted. (i.e. it should be illegal to use your car phone while driving)

Evidence

Using a car phone distracts the driver, which poses a threat to safe driving.

Meanwhile, if it were illegal to use your car phone while driving, people would be deterred from doing it.

Evaluate

On Sufficient Assumption, if there are any New Terms in the conclusion, they need to be in the correct answer. The big one in this conclusion is should be adopted.

We need to a construct a rule that sounds like

if ..... then .... the stuff we described in should adopt the evidence about this bill the bill

So what do we know about this bill?

It would make using your car phone while driving illegal. That would deter people from using their car phone while driving. Using your car phone seriously distracts the driver, which poses a threat to safe driving.

Chunking that all together, this bill would .

That seems to be the most common sense understanding of the author's rationale for why we should adopt the bill.

Goal

So we just need to hear something like

.

13.

The argument's main conclusion follows logically if which one of the following is assumed?

  1. The more attention one pays

    Unrelated to Goal

    Since this doesn't contain the language "should be adopted" it won't allow us to logically derive the wording, "Therefore, should be adopted".

    14% picked this

  2. The only way to reduce

    Unrelated to Goal

    Since this doesn't contain the language "should be adopted" it won't allow us to logically derive the wording, "Therefore, should be adopted". It definitely feels closer than (A), because if legislation is our only way, then we should adopt some legislation, right? Yes, but this is Sufficient Assumption. We're not being asked to fill in the blanks with common sense. We would need to spell out even that idea I just uttered, that "if legislation is our only way, then we should take that way". An additional problem is that this answer would only strengthen the idea that "we should adopt some legislation". It still doesn't give us a mechanism to argue for this bill.

    16% picked this

  3. Some distractions interfere with one’s

    Unrelated to Goal

    Weak wording like "some" will be wrong on Sufficient Assumption 99% of the time, since we need an answer to powerfully prove the conclusion in airtight fashion. Since this doesn't contain the language "should be adopted" it won't allow us to logically derive the wording, "Therefore, should be adopted".

    7% picked this

  4. Correct

    Any proposed law that would

    Why this is right

    This is actually the only eligible answer choice we're offered, since it's the only one to provide us with the wording we need in the conclusion: should be adopted. Does this rule apply to the bill being considered? Would this bill that criminalizes using your phone while driving reduce a threat to public safety? Sure, if using your phone while driving is illegal, it will deter people from doing so, and doing so seriously distracts the driver, which poses a threat to safe driving. Since this answer choice applies to the proposed bill we're talking about, it allows us to logically conclude that this proposed bill should be adopted.

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

    62% picked this

  5. Car phone use by passengers

    Unrelated to Goal

    Since this doesn't contain the language "should be adopted" it won't allow us to logically derive the wording, "Therefore, should be adopted".

    1% picked this

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