Logical Reasoning

PT114 · S1 · Q18 In order to determine automobile

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In order to determine automobile insurance premiums for a driver, insurance companies calculate various risk factors; as the risk factors increase, so does the premium.

Conclusion (should)

Insurance premiums should also increase with how often a person drives.

Evidence (After all)

A person's chance of being in a mishap rises in proportion to the number of times that person drives.

Evaluate

Whenever we do Main Conclusion / Role, we know they want to make it harder to find the conclusion, which they usually do by writing an Upside Down argument where the conclusion precedes its supporting evidence. 65% of them, the Conclusion is some Pivot / Rebuttal claim. 25% of them, the Conclusion is in the first sentence.

The first two sentences here seem factual and unsupported. They're just describing how insurance companies do their thang.

Then we get hit with a PIVOT (yet) and an OPINION indicator (should). That would immediately make us suspect a conclusion. Is this claim being Supported? Yes! It's followed by after all, which always indicates support.

Goal

We're being asked about the 3rd sentence, which was our main conclusion, so let's go look for an answer saying that the role is plays is Main Conclusion!

18.

The claim that insurance premiums should increase as the frequency with which a driver drives increases plays which one of the following roles in the argument?

  1. a premise of the argument

    Premise

    Nope, we're looking for Main Conclusion (or something equivalent). The premise of the argument is the claim following "after all".

    8% picked this

  2. Correct

    the conclusion of the argument

    Why this is right

    The claim that premiums should rise with driving frequency is the author's recommendation, and it is supported by the final sentence about the chance of a mishap.

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

    86% picked this

  3. evidence offered in support of

    Bad Description

    Nope, we're looking for Main Conclusion (or something equivalent). (This answer is specifically describing a premise that supports an Intermediate Conclusion, aka "a supported premise") This answer is bound to be wrong because if the role of our claim was truly evidence, then (A) would also be correct, and there can't be two correct answers. What (C) describes is still a premise of the argument.

    3% picked this

  4. an assertion phrased to preclude

    Bad Description

    Since this doesn't look like "Main Conclusion", and we have an answer that does, we wouldn't dig any deeper than that surface impression. If we did read it, we'd think, "No objection is anticipated anywhere in the passage." The author does not raise a counterargument or speak defensively.

    3% picked this

  5. a clarification of a key

    Bad Description

    The claim does not define or clarify any term. It's a normative recommendation. It asserts what premiums should do. The terms in the passage, such as risk factors and premiums, are used without any clarification, and the questioned claim is a recommendation, not a definition.

    0% picked this

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