Commissioner: Budget forecasters

Answer choices

1. A

   Bad Evidence Match5% picked this

   relies on information that is far

   An author relies on her evidence. Here the author's evidence is: - there's no feasible way to increase funds - we'll have to decrease expenditures - this plan involves cuts that would save a billion dollars over the coming fiscal year Which of those are we saying is "information that is far from certain"? How do we know that any of those premises are 'far from certain'? Did LSAC put in any textual clues to make us think that? Doesn't seem like it. Maybe we'd think, "Isn't the first sentence a budget forecast? Those are far from certain". Sure, but that's not even our author's premise. That's kind of just background information. And yes a forecast is far from certain, but are we criticizing the author for taking the forecast pretty seriously? If your budget forecasters projected a 1 billion dollar shortfall for the coming year, should you refrain from acting since that forecast is far from certain? Overall, we don't have a way to criticize the author for the certainty of the evidence. That's not really a critique of the reasoning. Critiquing the reasoning is, "I'll accept that all your premises are true, but they fail to prove the conclusion."

   5%
2. B

   Correct81% picked this

   confuses being an adequate solution with being a

   Why this is right

   When we see an answer take the form confuses X with Y mistakes X for Y ... we should expect the first half to sound like the evidence and the second half to sound like the conclusion or like an assumption the author made en route to the conclusion. Was the evidence establishing "an adequate solution"? Sure, the plan being recommended is identified in the evidence as one that would save a billion dollars, which should be adequate to solve the billion dollar budget shortfall. Is the conclusion acting like it's "a required solution"? Yes! That's the extreme "only if" that we found objectionable. We accept that we need to decrease expenditures, but why does it have to be this plan? Are there no other plans we can consider that would also decrease expenditures?

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

   81%
3. C

   Never a Flaw0% picked this

   inappropriately relies on the opinions of

   Would we really ever criticize someone for relying on the opinion of an expert? That's a great opinion to rely on! The rarest of the 10 famous flaws is called Inappropriate Appeals (to authority / to emotion). If an author relies on the opinion of a non-expert in a matter that requires expertise, we critique the author for an inappropriate appeal to a dubious authority. None of this author's premises involve the opinion of experts, and even if they did, we wouldn't find that objectionable.

   0%
4. D

   Out of Scope: vague language0% picked this

   inappropriately employs language that is

   One of the 10 famous flaws is Equivocation, which involves using the same term/concept in two completely different ways. A correct answer on an Equivocation argument has never used the language of "an ambiguous term", but it could. The idea of ambiguity is that "it could mean more than one thing". There is no term / concept in this argument that's being abused by being used ambiguously to mean two different things.

   0%
5. E

   Stated, not Assumed Not an Objection14% picked this

   takes for granted that there is no way to increase

   The author explicitly states that "there is no way to increase available funds". This answer says that the author assumes that "there is no way to increase available funds". So we could eliminate this answer based on it being descriptively inaccurate: "The author didn't assume X. She stated X explicitly." Are authors assuming the truth of their premises? Sure. But that's not a reasoning objection. Saying, "Your premise might be false" can weaken the argument, but it's not a critique of the reasoning. A critique of reasoning involves starting with accepting the truth of the premises and then showing why they still wouldn't establish the truth of the conclusion.

   14%