Sales manager: The highest priority

Answer choices

1. A

   Bad Description26% picked this

   that the sales department taken by itself is not critical to the company’s success

   The shipping manager doesn't say sales isn't critical. The response actually grants that sales is necessary — it just notes that other departments are also necessary. The response targets the leap from necessity to "highest priority," not the necessity claim itself.

   26%
2. B

   Bad Description5% picked this

   the ambiguity of the term “highest

   The shipping manager doesn't accuse the sales manager of using "highest priority" ambiguously. The response just notes that giving highest priority to multiple things is impossible — accepting the term's meaning and showing the principle yields an absurd result. There's no ambiguity claim.

   5%
3. C

   Bad Description2% picked this

   that departments other than sales are more vital to the

   The shipping manager doesn't rank other departments as more vital than sales — only as also vital. The point isn't which department is most important; it's that the sales manager's reasoning would require top priority for several departments at once, which is impossible.

   2%
4. D

   Correct65% picked this

   an absurd consequence of its apparent assumption that a department’s necessity earns it

   Why this is right

   This nails the move. The sales manager's argument has an implicit assumption: a department's necessity earns it the highest priority. The shipping manager exposes that this principle, applied to all the departments that are necessary, would require giving the highest priority to several departments — which is impossible. That's the absurd consequence the response highlights. Classic reductio ad absurdum: take the opponent's premise, run it through, and show it leads somewhere it can't go.

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

   65%
5. E

   Bad Description1% picked this

   that the sales manager makes a generalization from an

   The sales manager isn't generalizing from an atypical case — there's no specific example being extended. The sales manager is making a general principled argument (sales is necessary, therefore sales should get top priority). And the shipping manager isn't accusing the sales manager of overgeneralizing from a one-off; the response targets the principle itself by showing it can't apply consistently.

   1%