Numerous books describe the rules

Answer choices

1. A

   Bad Conclusion Match4% picked this

   reaches a conclusion about how people actually behave on the basis of assertions regarding how

   Is the conclusion about how people actually behave? No, the entire argument is only about rules of how people should behave (correct / incorrect). The conclusion is saying it's absurd for writers of etiquette books to believe a certain idea.

   4%
2. B

   Bad Conclusion Match Not Sampling6% picked this

   bases a generalization about all books of etiquette on the actions of

   If an answer says the argument bases X on Y, then X should match a conclusion and Y should match part of the evidence. Was the conclusion a generalization about all books of etiquette? No, the last claim is saying anything that is true about 100% of etiquette books. It's just saying that "idea X is absurd". Was the evidence talking about the actions of a few authors? Sure, kind of. "Numerous books describe ___ " is referring to actions of authors. But that first claim is more like background than evidence. This answer is teasing the famous Sampling flaw, in which the author says, "since this thing was true for these few authors of etiquette books, it must be true about all books of etiquette".

   6%
3. C

   Not Assumed4% picked this

   fails to justify its presumption regarding the influence of rules of etiquette

   The author didn't make any assumptions about what sort of causal influence the rules of etiquette have on actual behavior. Nothing in the paragraph discusses actual behavior. It's only an argument about whether or not it's absurd to codify etiquette and pass it off as though this is "the correct" standard by which people should live.

   4%
4. D

   Correct84% picked this

   overlooks the possibility that authors of etiquette books are purporting to state what is correct behavior for

   Why this is right

   Hey, Irish Manners, it was you?! This answer matches one of the objections we were making in our evaluation, which was "even though these books codify standards of behavior, that doesn't suggest to the reader that there is a single, objective standard of politeness". After all, maybe the author makes clear that he/she is only speaking for one particular culture. So the books are saying, "This is what counts as correct / incorrect within Culture X". How were we able to anticipate this kind of answer? We asked our brain how it would resist each of the author's moves. "Hey, brain -- how can we accept that books on etiquette codify behaviors as polite or rude, but argue that this doesn't suggest there is a single, objective standard of politeness?" Even if we were focused on the move to the main conclusion and asked, "Hey, brain -- how can we accept that cultures vary a ton in terms of their standards of politeness, but still argue that it's not absurd to label a set of behaviors 'correct'?" This answer would whisper the solution to us --- it's not absurd to label one set of behaviors 'correct' if you're only labeling them 'correct' for one given culture!

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

   84%
5. E

   Out of Scope: lend itself credence3% picked this

   attempts to lend itself credence by unfairly labeling the position of the authors of

   The author was only calling the final claim "absurd" because the author believed it would be genuinely silly to say, "Of all these arbitrary cultural value systems, system X is the correct one." It would be like deciding on the "one true religion". The author was not using the word 'absurd' to elevate his own credibility.

   3%