Jordan: If a business invests the

Answer choices

1. A

   Correct44% picked this

   Jordan: Either it will rain and our plans for a picnic will be thwarted or it won’t rain and the garden will go yet

   Why this is right

   This answer is kind of terrible, but we find it as the best available on a 2nd pass. We wouldn't be able to match up everything with what we thought we were looking for, but Jordan definitely presents a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" binary, just like the original Jordan did. If we do X, bad thing happens. if it rains, picnic is thwarted If we don't do X, different bad thing happens. if it doesn't rain, garden won't get watered Terry proposes a solution that takes away the bad thing associated with the preferred course of action. In the original conversation, we'd rather have businesses invest in greener practices than not invest, because we don't want environmental pollution and degradation! So our preferred course of action is that businesses invest in greener practices. We're just trying to figure out how to deal with the problem of the early adopter businesses being "punished" in the marketplace for raising prices to cover the higher costs of their greener practices. And Terry's solution is to have consumers incentivize businesses to go green, which potentially solves this problem. In (A)'s conversation, we'd rather it not rain than rain, because we don't want our picnic to be thwarted! But we are kinda worried about our garden, if it doesn't rain. Terry proposes a solution that allows us to feel better about this preferred outcome. Phew, we have a potential win-win ... it doesn't rain, we get to have our picnic, and we have Terry's solution for how we deal with the garden. In the original, phew, we have a potential win-win ... businesses invest in greener practices, we don't have environmental degradation, and we have Terry's solution for how we deal with the problem of early adopting businesses getting punished by consumers seeking lower prices.

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

   44%
2. B

   Weak Jordan Match Bad Terry Match5% picked this

   Jordan: Each person can have either an enjoyable life or a long life, for one must eat vegetables and exercise continuously to stay healthy.

   Jordan's is decent, although the original was "If X happens / If X doesn't happen", as was the correct answer. Jordan's statements here are presenting "You can have X or you can have Y, but you can't have both", but that wording still implies you might have neither. Here's me stretching it to try to make it work ... If we do X, bad thing happens. if we eat veggies / exercise, then not enjoyable life If we don't do X, different bad thing happens. if we don't eat veggies / exercise, then not live long life Terry's objection is saying, "That first connection isn't true. Eating veggies and exercising doesn't guarantee a non-enjoyable / unhappy life. There are people who are health-conscious but still happy." That's not as strong a match as proposing an alternate plan that allows us to circumvent one of the bad outcomes.

   5%
3. C

   Bad Relationship Match Weak Jordan Match31% picked this

   Jordan: If taxes are raised, many social problems could be solved, but if they’re lowered, the economy will grow again. So we can’t have

   Terry: But if taxes remain at their current level, neither social problems nor the economy

   Jordan is not presenting a binary the way the original or correct answer do. Invest the money required implement better practices vs. doesn't implement better practices It rains vs. it doesn't rain Taxes are raised vs. lowered vs. stay the same Terry's answer doesn't have a similar relationship to that of the original because now Terry is just pointing out that Jordan is starting from a false dichotomy. Terry is saying, "We're not limited to those two triggers. There's a third trigger". In the original and the correct answer, there really are only two possible triggers, and Terry's response is just saying, "for one of those triggers, I have a plan that would thwart the outcome from coming true."

   31%
4. D

   Bad Jordan Match5% picked this

   Jordan: If we remodel the kitchen, the house will be more valuable, but even if we do, there’s no guarantee that we’ll actually get

   Terry: But if we don’t remodel the kitchen, we might get even less for the house than

   There's no binary conditional to go off of in Jordan's statements. Jordan is saying, "If X, then good thing Y" "But even with X, no guarantee of good thing Z"

   5%
5. E

   Weak Jordan Match Bad Terry Match15% picked this

   Jordan: If the dam’s spillway is opened, the river might flood the eastern part of town, but if the spillway is not

   Terry: There’s no real danger of the dam’s bursting, but if we get more heavy rain, opening the spillway

   The Jordan part of this matches pretty fine, except its outcomes are just "might" statements, whereas the original was quite certain of its outcomes. If we do X, bad thing happens. if we open spillway, river might flood east side of town If we don't do X, different bad thing happens. if we don't open spillway, dam might burst. Terry's response should either be saying that there's a way when we open the spillway that can keep the east side from being flooded, or saying that there's a way if we don't open the spillway that the dam doesn't burst. Instead, Terry is just saying "that second outcome is super low probability", and adding on a conditional conclusion, "if this other thing happens we should go with the first trigger". It's a mess, none of which matches up.

   15%