Lawyer: A body of circumstantial

Answer choices

1. A

   Correct72% picked this

   takes for granted that no items in a body of circumstantial evidence are significantly more critical to the strength of the evidence

   Why this is right

   This defends the argument from something that would be devastating to the argument. If some evidence was more important than other evidence, then the loss of an important piece of evidence could undermine the overall body of evidence.

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

   72%
2. B

   Irrelevant Comparison3% picked this

   presumes, without providing justification, that the strength of a body of evidence is less than the sum of the strengths of

   Whether the strength of a body of evidence is less than the sum of the strengths of the parts of that body or is greater than a multiple of the parts of that body is not relevant to the argument.

   3%
3. C

   Trap15% picked this

   fails to consider the possibility that if many items in a body of circumstantial evidence were discredited, the overall body

   Bad Objection (out of scope: many items) The argument is about what would happen if a few pieces of evidence (3 or 4) were discredited. The author thinks if only a few strands of the rope are lost, the rope is still pretty much the same, and if only a few pieces of evidence are discredited, the case is largely the same. But if many pieces were discredited, that could be an entirely different story. Many doesn't have a precise quantitative minimum, but we functionally use a shorthand like "at least 5 / at least 10 / at least a handful". Saying "many of my friends vape" is a stronger statement than saying "a few of my friends vape", so this potential objection would be beyond the scope of what the conclusion is addressing.

   15%
4. D

   Contradiction7% picked this

   offers an analogy in support of a conclusion without indicating whether the two types of things

   The argument does indicate that the two types of things compared share at least one similarity; adding strands to a rope strengthens it, just as additional pieces of circumstantial evidence strengthen the body of evidence.

   7%
5. E

   Wrong Flaw2% picked this

   draws a conclusion that simply restates a claim presented in support

   The argument’s conclusion is not stated as a premise. This describes the famous Circular Reasoning flaw, which shows up a ton as an incorrect answer but is almost never correct.

   2%