Media consultant: Electronic media are

Answer choices

1. A

   Not Circular5% picked this

   presupposes as a premise what it is trying

   This answer describes the famous Circular reasoning flaw, which probably shows up 30 times as an incorrect answer choice for every 1 time it's correct. A Circular argument is one in which there isn't really a unique premise idea. The premise is sort of just reiterating or assuming the conclusion. This argument has unique premises, though. The premises are "books helped the emergence of the traditional school" and "electronic media are taking over function of books". Neither one of those claims necessitates believing "electronic media will end the traditional school".

   5%
2. B

   Not Inappropriate Appeal0% picked this

   relies inappropriately on expert

   This answer sounds like the famous Inappropriate Appeal flaw, one version of which is when an author appeals to someone's opinion but doesn't establish that they have relevant expertise on the matter. There is no "expert testimony" anywhere in the ballpark of this argument, so there's no way to match this answer up with anything we heard. Finally, it's not really a logical complaint that someone relied on expert testimony. Expert testimony is pretty solid evidence!

   0%
3. C

   Bad Evidence Match21% picked this

   presupposes that just because something can happen it

   This describes a semi-famous flaw (top 15, but not top 10), we could call Possible vs. Certain. The language of, "presupposes that just because X is true, Y is true" means that the author said X in the evidence and then concluded Y. The conclusion is a certain claim: it is inevitable that the traditional school will not survive. But there isn't a premise that says "it's possible that the traditional school won't survive". This answer is describing an argument that explicitly cites the possibility of something in the evidence, like this: Tony got a 160. People with 160s sometimes get into Yale. Thus, Tony will definitely get accepted by Yale.

   21%
4. D

   Correct64% picked this

   mistakes something that enables an institution to arise for something necessary

   Why this is right

   When Flaw answers say that the author confuses X with Y or mistakes X for Y, we want to consider whether X matches the evidence and Y matches the conclusion. Did the evidence talk about something that "enabled an institution to arise"? Yes. Books facilitated the emergence of the traditional school. Does the conclusion act like books are necessary to the traditional school? Yes. The author is acting like "once electronic media takes over the function of books (once we aren't using books anymore), the traditional school will end." Were we to write this as a conditional, it would look like this: Books → Traditional School Traditional School → Books That second line can be read as "Traditional school requires books".

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

   64%
5. E

   Bad Conclusion Match9% picked this

   confuses the value of an institution with the medium by which

   When Flaw answers say that the author confuses X with Y or mistakes X for Y, we want to consider whether one half of that matches the evidence and the other half matches the conclusion. The evidence is talking about the medium by which the traditional school operates (books vs. electronic media). But the conclusion isn't talking about the value of the traditional school. It's only talking about the survival / existence of the traditional school.

   9%