Curator: A magazine recently ran

Answer choices

1. A

   Bad Premise Match0% picked this

   It is misleading to present the opinions of people with no special expertise on a subject as

   This has the correct conclusion wording of "misleading", but the argument had nothing to do with presenting these three close friends' opinions as though they were expert opinions. The argument was about presenting these close friends' opinions as though they were representative opinions.

   0%
2. B

   Weak Premise Match2% picked this

   It is misleading to present the opinions of people on only one side of an issue when the population is likely to

   This has the conclusion part right ("misleading"), but the evidence wasn't complaining that the magazine only grabbed opinions from one side of an issue. In truth, yes that's true, but that was not anything the author explicitly said. The author wasn't saying anything like, "We'd expect that the population is likely to be evenly divided on the issue of the controversial art exhibit". The author may think that most local residents are on the side of being totally fine with the new exhibit. He isn't mad that three close friends were interviewed because that throws off the correct picture of evenly divided opinion. He's just mad that the magazine would pretend that whatever these three close friends had to say would be an adequate proxy for what most local residents would say.

   2%
3. C

   Weak Premise Match8% picked this

   It is misleading to present the opinions of a few people as evidence of what the majority thinks unless the opinions

   This seems very tempting. The magazine did present the opinions of a few people as evidence of what the majority thinks, and the author found this misleading. But it was because the three people were close friends, not because their opinions are now widely held. We don't know whether or not their opinions are widely held, so there's no way to connect the language in this answer choice to the paragraph. This rule would look like this: opinion of few people presented as evidence of what majority thinks and ? misleading opinions expressed are not widely held The premises don't trigger that rule because we weren't told that the opinions expressed are not widely held.

   8%
4. D

   Bad Intermediate Conclusion Match11% picked this

   It is misleading to present testimony from close friends and thereby imply that they must

   The correct version of this answer would say It's misleading to present testimony from close friends and thereby imply that most local residents share the same view. The author wasn't saying the magazine implied that they must therefore agree with each other. The three friends did agree with each other (at least to the extent that they all expressed moral outrage). The author was just mad that the magazine used this to suggest that most local residents agree with them.

   11%
5. E

   Correct79% picked this

   It is misleading to present the opinions of a potentially nonrepresentative sample of people as if

   Why this is right

   The magazine presented the opinions of 3 close friends as if they represented public opinion (as if they represented what most local residents felt). Are 3 close friends a potentially non-representative sample? Yes! Not only is it a small sample, but people tend to be close friends with people who are very demographically similar to them: similar age, similar religious beliefs (or lack thereof), similar political affiliation, similar education levels, etc. Representative samples have diversity of ages, backgrounds, beliefs. This rule would look like this: presented as if they represent public opinion and ? misleading potentially unrepresentative sample

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

   79%