Logical Reasoning

PT116 · S2 · Q21 Curator: A magazine recently ran

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Curator: A magazine recently ran a very misleading story on the reaction of local residents to our controversial art exhibit.

Conclusion

The magazine story was very misleading in its story on .

Evidence

All three of the quoted residents were morally outraged, and this was meant to suggest that most local residents oppose the exhibit. But these three residents were close friends.

Evaluate

When we're trying to pick a Principle to conform to or justify an argument, we can generally just start with an "If Premise, then Conclusion" linking idea. This author is trying to prove that story was misleading.

Why is it misleading? The reactions of the three local residents quoted are supposed to suggest the reactions of most local residents, but the three quoted people were close friends.

So, the author must be assuming a principle like,

If three people then it's misleading to act are close friends → like their opinions represent those of most locals

Goal

The author is essentially mad that the magazine acted like 3 close friends are a "representative sample" of the majority of local opinion. So the author is also implicitly assuming that .

21.

Which one of the following principles most helps to justify the curator's argumentation?

  1. It is misleading to present

    Bad Premise Match

    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% picked this

  2. It is misleading to present

    Weak Premise Match

    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% picked this

  3. It is misleading to present

    Weak Premise Match

    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% picked this

  4. It is misleading to present

    Bad Intermediate Conclusion Match

    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.

    10% picked this

  5. Correct

    It is misleading to present

    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.

    80% picked this

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