This stamp is probably highly valuable,

Answer choices

1. A

   Nothing New8% picked this

   The older a stamp is, the more valuable

   This seems to tell us what we already knew. We knew that one of the most important factors in determining value is age. Did we take that to mean older is more valuable or more recent is more valuable? There's no common sense way to think we mean "more recent is more valuable", because the most recent stamps are the ones you can currently buy at the post office, for 50 cents. So it was already implied by common sense that if "age is one of the most important factors in determining value" that we mean the older it is, the more valuable. Granted, this is Sufficient Assumption, so we should need to establish everything from the ground up, but if we're thinking about what the test writers thought was most missing from the evidence, when it comes to 1. condition 2. age 3. rarity we explicitly covered #1 and #2. We need an answer to address #3.

   8%
2. B

   Correct72% picked this

   Printing errors are always confined to a few

   Why this is right

   The strength of this "always" guarantees that if printing error, then rare Since every printing error only happens on 3 or 4 individual stamps, they are bound to be rare. Again, this plays off the common sense that WAY MORE than 3 or 4 stamps of any kind are ultimately produced. It's weird for this Sufficient Assumption question to be leaning on so much common sense and thus be squishier in terms of "logical proof" than what is normally the case.

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

   72%
3. C

   Out of Scope: owned by collectors2% picked this

   Most stamps with printing errors are already in the hands

   Who this stamp is owned by is completely irrelevant to whether or not it's highly valuable.

   2%
4. D

   No Impact10% picked this

   Rarity and age are of equal importance to a

   Given that we still have no idea if this stamp is rare or not, we aren't really helped or hurt by learning that rarity = age, in terms of importance.

   10%
5. E

   Nothing New8% picked this

   Even old and rare stamps are usually not valuable if they are

   This seems to say something we already knew. The 3 big factors in value were 1. condition 2. age 3. rarity We're probably assuming that when something only has 2 out of 3, it's not very valuable. If I have a very old stamp in sparkling condition, it won't be that valuable if it doesn't have much rarity (if 1,000 other people have the same thing). Similarly, as this answer is saying, if I have something old and rare, it won't be that valuable if it's in crappy condition. This answer provides no additional information about "THIS stamp", the one we're trying to investigate.

   8%