It is impossible to do science

Answer choices

1. A

   Correct61% picked this

   Long hours of practice are necessary for developing musical skill. One must develop one’s musical skill in order to perform difficult music. But long

   Why this is right

   This looks good. Everything can be matched. Science requires measuring. Performing hard music requires developing music skill Measuring requires selecting units. Developing music skill requires long hours. Selecting units is arbitrary. Long hours are tedious. So, Science is arbitrary. Performing hard music is tedious. P1: A → B P2: B → C P3: C is X. C: A is X.

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

   61%
2. B

   Bad Evidence Match8% picked this

   You have to advertise to run an expanding business, but advertising is expensive. Hence, it is expensive

   One quick way to discount this one is that there are only 2 premises, whereas the original argument had 3. Those two premises can chain together, but there's no 3rd premise to give us the C to D action we need. We could pile on and say the conclusion is also invalid. It should say "it is expensive to run an expanding business", not refer to all businesses.

   8%
3. C

   Bad Evidence Match9% picked this

   It is permissible to sit on the park benches. To sit on the park benches one must walk to them. One way to walk

   We need at least two conditional premises that chain together. This argument only has one conditional premise ("one must walk"). The other two aren't conditional - it's permissible - one way is We can say that "Sitting on the benches requires walking to them", but we can't chain on to that and say that "walking to the benches requires [some other thing]". So it dies there.

   9%
4. D

   Bad Evidence Match21% picked this

   It is impossible to be a manager without evaluating people. The process of evaluation is necessarily subjective. Thus, people resent managers because

   One quick way to discount this one is that there are only 2 premises, whereas the original argument had 3. We'd be able to say that "being a manager requires evaluating people, and evaluating people requires subjectivity". But there's no 3rd premise to give us the C to D action we need. The argument would have to go on to say something like, "And since subjectivity is judgmental, being a manager is judgmental".

   21%
5. E

   Bad Conclusion Match1% picked this

   Some farming on the plains requires irrigation. This irrigation now uses water pumped from aquifers. But aquifers have limited capacity and continued pumping will

   One quick way to discount this one is that the conclusion brings in a brand new concept "a new source of water". We also don't have premises that chain together. We can say "some farming requires irrigation", but then there's nothing to add on to that with "irrigation requires [some other thing]". They say that irrigation now uses water pumped from aquifers, but it's not presented as a required consequence of irrigation, so it doesn't chain up like in our original.

   1%