Concert promoter: Some critics claim

Answer choices

1. A

   Bad Premise Match0% picked this

   attacks the critics on the basis of emotional considerations rather than

   Nothing in the evidence is an emotional consideration. The evidence is a quantitative comparison of merchandise revenue.

   0%
2. B

   Too Strong32% picked this

   takes for granted that income from sales of memorabilia is the sole indicator

   Too Strong: "sole indicator" Only Thing Mentioned vs. Only Thing Does the author need to assume that income from merchandise sales are a possible / reliable indicator of popular appeal? Definitely. Does she need to assume that it's the only indicator of popular appeal? Definitely not. The fact that she is attempting to point to memorabilia sales as an indicator of popular appeal doesn't mean she thinks it's the only metric for determining popular appeal. Assumption trap answers love to bait people into thinking that "the only thing the author mentioned is therefore the only thing".

   32%
3. C

   Correct60% picked this

   takes for granted that the comparable series possess

   Why this is right

   Is the author assuming the comparable series have popular appeal? Yes, definitely. She is saying, "We have popular appeal. Look: our memorabilia sales are just as high as their memorabilia sales!" She's using these other comparable series as a benchmark for popular appeal. If they didn't have popular appeal, then it wouldn't be impressive that her concert series has just as much revenue from memorabilia sales. When author's are making comparisons, they're frequently assuming that they are relevantly similar on all the intended levels. Our author is trying to argue that, "My series has equivalent memorabilia revenue to that of these other series. And since those other series have popular appeal, this shows that my series has popular appeal."

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

   60%
4. D

   Bad Premise Match6% picked this

   draws a conclusion about the popularity of a series based on a comparison with

   Is the conclusion about the popularity of a series? Yes. Is the evidence a comparison to other, dissimilar events? No. Obviously these other comparable concert series are not identical; there will be dissimilarities. But calling them dissimilar overall contradicts the stated premise that they are comparable.

   6%
5. E

   Not Part vs. Whole1% picked this

   fails to adequately distinguish the series as a whole from individual

   The distinction between the whole series and individual concerts is similar to a Whole vs. Part flaw, but this argument was not arguing, "Since the concert series overall was popular, each individual concert in the series must have been popular."

   1%