The asteroid that hit the Yucatan Peninsula

Answer choices

1. A

   Weak Premise Match / Weak Conclusion Match3% picked this

   I know that one cannot move this piano unless one can lift at least 150 kilograms. I doubt that either Leon or Pam can

   Almost. This is a part vs. whole flaw. Even if each person can’t move the piano alone, they might collectively have the ability to do so. We could match that with the asteroid example, by saying that even if neither the fire nor climate change could individually be assured to wipe out the T’s, they might collectively be able to do so. But the language of “I doubt that X and Y can do A” is not as good a match for “we cannot attribute Y to X” as the conclusion of D, which says “we cannot claim X caused Y”.

   3%
2. B

   Not a Flaw / Bad Conclusion Match3% picked this

   Since we are quite sure that Cheng and Lin are the only candidates in the mayoral election, we can be quite sure that either

   This is pretty sound logic. The conclusion is an either/or claim, whereas the original conclusion was not. So we have a pretty safe Conclusion Mismatch to use for elimination.

   3%
3. C

   Weak Premise Match / Weak Conclusion Match11% picked this

   It has not been conclusively proven that the accident was caused by John's driving at excessive speeds. Nor has it been conclusively proven that

   Close. The premises sound similar to the original argument. We can’t prove the accident was specifically caused by speeding or by weaving, but we still might be able to say with confidence that the accident was caused by some combination of speeding and weaving. This only had two premises though. We’re missing a premise that says “thing X had effect 1 and effect 2”. And the language of the conclusion is stronger than that of the original. “We have conclusively proven X and Y were not the cause of Z” is a weak match for “We cannot attribute X as the cause of Z”.

   11%
4. D

   Correct82% picked this

   The flooding in the basement caused damage to the furnace and also caused a short in the electrical system. Fire investigators could not show

   Why this is right

   We know the flooding did thing A and thing B. We can’t prove that thing A did Z (the fire), nor that thing B did Z. The author similarly concludes that we don’t know that the flooding did Z. But we may be fully convinced that the flooding cause the fire, through some combination of thing A and B.

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

   82%
5. E

   Trap1% picked this

   We have good reason to believe that the cause of the flooding along the coast was the unusually high tides. We also have good

   Not a Flaw / Bad Premise Match / Bad Conclusion Match This is pretty sound reasoning. This seems to take the original argument and flip it on its head, as it’s talking about things we can “prove”. It’s also missing the 3rd premise. It’s also creating a causal chain, which wasn’t present in the original argument: sun/moon → high tides → flooding.

   1%