Logical Reasoning

PT125 · S2 · Q10 Helen: Reading a book

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Helen: Reading a book is the intellectual equivalent of investing money: you're investing time, thereby foregoing other ways of spending that time, in the hope that what you learn will later afford you more opportunities than you'd get by spending the time doing something other than reading that book.

Helen

Reading a book is like investing, only with time instead of money. You’re hoping the time you invest in reading the book will earn you extra opportunities (interest) over time.

Randi

Sure, if it’s a vocational book. But If you’re reading fiction, it’s more like the wasted time you might spend watching a sitcom.

Evaluation

Randi basically agrees with Helen, he just wants to qualify the scope of Helen’s argument. He’s saying, .

Goal

We might say that Randi qualifies the scope of Helen’s argument, or that Randi points out a counterexample to Helen’s overly broad argument.

10.

Which one of the following most accurately describes the technique Randi uses in responding to Helen's claims?

  1. questioning how the evidence Helen

    Bad Premise Match

    Nothing Randi says is presented as a commentary on how Helen gathered evidence. He isn’t saying, “You must have only looked at vocational books as you were gathering evidence for your analogy.” He’s just saying, “Yeah, that’s a good analogy for nonfiction books, but not so much for fiction.”

    0% picked this

  2. Correct

    disputing the scope of Helen's

    Why this is right

    Randi does dispute the scope of Helen’s analogy, saying that it only applies to vocational books (a narrower scope than all books). Does he present another analogy? Yes, he says that reading fiction is like watching a sitcom.

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

    90% picked this

  3. arguing that Helen's reasoning ultimately

    Too Strong: “absurd conclusion”

    Randi thinks that Helen’s reasoning is sound, as long as we’re talking about vocational books. He doesn’t suggest that she has reached an absurd conclusion, just that her conclusion only applies to a smaller subset of things than what she initially argued.

    2% picked this

  4. drawing an analogy to an

    Out Of Scope

    Out Of Scope: “example presented by Helen” Helen does not present any examples. She presents an analogy between reading books and investing money. An example is a specific instance of a general statement (i.e. “Lebron is 6’8” is an example of the general statement “Pro basketball players tend to be tall”). Analogies are two specific situations that share some general common features.

    5% picked this

  5. denying the relevance of an

    Out Of Scope

    Out Of Scope: “example presented by Helen” Helen doesn’t present an example. She presents an analogy. Randi does not deny the relevance of investing money to reading books, so long as we’re talking about vocational books. →

    2% picked this

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