Logical Reasoning

PT117 · S3 · Q6 Hana said she was not

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Hana said she was not going to invite her brothers to her birthday party.

Conclusion

At least some of Hana's brothers must have been among the guests at Hana's birthday party after all.

Evidence (since)

Even though Hana said she wasn't going to invite her brothers, one of the gifts Hana received at her party was a recording she had been saying she wanted. Her brothers planned to give her that recording.

Evaluate

Since Hana got a recording that her brothers were planning to give her, does that prove that some of the brothers were at the party?

No that doesn't prove that. Couldn't we think of alternate explanations for how Hana would get that gift, even though her brothers weren't at the party?

- it's possible her brothers just left that gift at the party location ahead of time, but didn't attend the party

- it's possible her brothers sent the gift with someone else who they knew was invited to the party

- it's possible someone else got her the recording, too, since Hana had apparently expressed an interest in it.

Goal

The author is too sure of one possible causal explanation for how Hana got that recording as a gift. Let's look for an answer calling out that overconfidence or suggesting an alternative explanation.

6.

A reasoning error in the argument is that the argument

  1. disregards the possibility that a

    Not an Objection

    When a Flaw answer choice begins with fails to consider / overlooks the possibility we can ask ourselves, "would this hurt the argument, if true?" This answer choice seems to be objecting, "What if Hana changed her mind, in light of changing circumstances, and decided she would invite her brothers?" That wouldn't weaken. That would actually strengthen the author's conclusion that Hana's brothers were at the party.

    8% picked this

  2. treats the fact of someone’s

    Bad Premise/Conclusion Match

    When a Flaw answer choice is structured treats X as a guarantee that Y we can ask ourselves, "does X match the evidence and Y match the conclusion? Were we told in the evidence of "the fact of someone's presence at a given event"? No. Instead, the conclusion is thinking that at least one brother was present at Hana's birthday event. But we were never told that as a factual premise. This answer also mismatches the conclusion. According to this answer choice, the argument was, "Since we know at least one of the brothers was the event, we can conclude that this brother had a legitimate reason to be there".

    13% picked this

  3. uses a term that is

    Wrong Flaw: Not Opinion vs. Fact

    This answer choice describes an author who failed to distinguish between evaluative Opinion and objective/descriptive Fact. There aren't actually any intrinsically evaluative terms in this paragraph. An intrinsically evaluate term would be like if I said, "Hana had a successful birthday party."

    2% picked this

  4. Correct

    fails to establish that something

    Why this is right

    When a Flaw answer choice begins with takes for granted / presumes / fails to establish we can ask ourselves, "was the author assuming this?" Was the author assuming "something true of some people is true of only those people". Ugh, yes, we can make this work with our prephrased Objection of, "What if one of Hana's friends bought her the recording? (That would explain how she got that gift without needing to implicate one of her brothers' being present at the party)." Our author, in thinking that it must have been one of Hana's brothers who is responsible for this gift, was assuming that only the brothers knew she wanted that recording, or only the brothers had planned to give her that recording. That's what this answer is getting at. We know that "planned to give Hana this recording" is something true of Hana's brothers. Since the author isn't even considering the possibility that other people also may have "planned to give Hana this recording", he is assuming that "planned to give Hana this recording" is true of only Hana's brothers. Negating this assumption would be saying, "Hana's brothers are not the only people for whom it was true to say they planned to give Hana that recording", and that negation would be a big objection, because it would suggest an alternate explanation the author has failed to consider.

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

    72% picked this

  5. overlooks the possibility that a

    Not An Objection

    When a Flaw answer choice begins with fails to consider / overlooks the possibility we can ask ourselves, "would this hurt the argument, if true?" Can we hurt the argument by saying that, "even though Hana is interested in this recording, she could also be interested in a different thing as well"? No. The author was never assuming that Hana was only interested in the recording, so it's not an objection to bring up the fact that she may have been interested in other stuff as well.

    5% picked this

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