Logical Reasoning

PT127 · S1 · Q26 Essayist: Common sense, which is

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Essayist: Common sense, which is always progressing, is nothing but a collection of theories that have been tested over time and found useful.

Statements

conditionals (always, nothing but)

Common → Always progressing sense

Common → collection of time-tested sense theories found useful

conditional (when)

Alternate theory eventually more useful than → supplant theories common sense in common sense

causal (causes, because)

The process of newer, common more useful theories ⇢ sense eventually supplanting progresses theories in common sense

Common sense absorbs Common sense new theories slowly ⇢ always has some obsolete stuff

Evaluate

We're very attracted to Conditional or Causal indicator wording, when we're doing Must Be True and Most Supported. And that's because often conditional as well as causal statements chain together. If A leads to B, and B leads to C, they can test us on our understanding that A leads to C.

But then other times we get a random mess of stuff, like this problem. Diagramming these statements is probably not going to help us, since they don't really chain together. And since there are a few conditional ideas and a couple causal ones, should we anticipate a conditional chain or a causal chain?

In short, we don't know. However, the final sentence does have a pivot (but / yet / however). Usually, when an Inference paragraph Ends with a Pivot, the correct answer deals with the tension created by that pivot idea.

What does it tell us, if anything, that because common sense absorbs new theories slowly, it always contains some obsolete theories?

"Obsolete" means that something is no longer widely used or believed, or its functionality has been superseded. The iPod and iPhones made listening to music on CD's obsolete.

So if some theories in common sense are obsolete, it's because alternative theories have already proven themselves more useful. I guess common sense is like a big corporation. Even when smaller businesses innovate better ways, the big corporation's pace of change is glacial, so it has some outmoded ways of doing things.

Goal

Let's look for anything provable, possibly dealing with the tension created by the fact that common sense always contains some obsolete ideas.

We know three things about "common sense" - always progressing - a collection of theories that have been tested over time and found useful - always contains some obsolete theories

Maybe the correct answer will speak to an overlap between some of those traits.

26.

If all of the essayist's statements are true, then which one of the following must be true?

At least some new theories
Too Strong: never be absorbed
We don't have any sort of rule in this paragraph that gives us a way to prove that something "will not be absorbed". We only have a rule that says, "If alt. theory proves more useful, will be absorbed (eventually)"
6% picked this
Of the useful theories within
Too Strong: generally
Can we really say most of the older theories in common sense are less useful than most of the newer ones? Nothing in the paragraph let's us quantify a comparison in usefulness. The temptation in this answer is that a new theory in common sense occurs because that new theory is more useful than the one it's replacing. But let's say that there are 100 theories in common sense. There might be like 65 ironclad theories that are super useful. It's unlikely an alternate theory that's even more useful will ever be developed. Meanwhile, there are 35 decent theories that are somewhat useful. But over time, we keep finding ways to improve on them. They get swapped out for somewhat more useful alternatives. But that doesn't mean that the average usefulness of those 35 (the newer ones) will be higher than the usefulness of the 65 older theories, that are so useful, they've never been replaced!
10% picked this
The frequency with which new
Unsupported Causal Relationship
The passage told us that superior theories are absorbed into common sense slowly. This answer seems to be positing some causal backstory to explain why they're absorbed slowly (it's saying "there are just so many new theories that common sense doesn't want to overreact, so it takes it slow"?) We are just told that common sense absorbs new theories slowly. The passage doesn't explain why it absorbs new theories slowly, so we can't prove this causal claim about why it does so.
5% picked this
Each theory within the body
Too Strong: each theory
Nothing in the paragraph guarantees that every theory in common sense will eventually be replaced. The only trigger we know that guarantees that a theory will be replaced is when an alternate theory is found that proves more useful. Do we know that, for every theory in common sense, there will eventually be an alternate theory that is found to be more useful? No, we weren't told that, which is why this answer is too strong.
8% picked this
Correct
At least some theories that
Why this is right
As we suspected, this answer deals with the tension created by the ending Pivot idea. Since common sense always contains some obsolete theories, that means that there are always some alternate theories out there that are superior to some of the theories in common sense. "Superior" means that there are always some theories in the world that are more useful than some theories still embodied in common sense. We know that all theories embodied in common sense have been tested over time and found useful. So we add up claims to derive this answer: 1. CS always contains some obsolete theories (some theories that are less useful than some alternate theory out there in the world) + 2. all the theories in CS have been proven useful ∴ Some theories in CS are theories that have proven useful, but are nevertheless less useful than alternate theories that haven't yet been absorbed (since CS absorbs new theories slowly). We anticipated that the correct answer might try to forge some overlap between some pairing of the three things we knew about "common sense", and this answer is combining the 2nd and 3rd: - always progressing - a collection of theories that have been tested over time and found useful - always contains some obsolete theories It's saying that "some of the theories in common sense have been tested over time and found useful but are also obsolete".
Skill tested: Must be True · how this choice captures the argument's function is the move to repeat next time.
71% picked this

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