Psychologist: People tend to make

Answer choices

1. A

   Out of Scope1% picked this

   attempts to refute a claim that a particular event is inevitable by establishing the possibility

   Out of Scope: refute a claim Bad Conclusion/Evidence Match The author is undermining the idea that "we should try to rid ourselves of the tendency to make errors when predicting how a given event would affect our future happiness." But we can't say the author is refuting a claim, because there's no explicit claim here to refute. There's definitely not a claim that "a particular event is inevitable". What follows is also wrong, but we shouldn't be continuing to read this answer once the first half is such a mismatch.

   1%
2. B

   Out of Scope1% picked this

   attempts to undermine a theory by calling into question an assumption on which the

   Out of Scope: theory / assumption Bad Evidence / Conclusion Match The conclusion isn't undermining a theory. It is undermining a potential course of action (trying to rid oneself of the tendency to make cognitive errors about future happiness). And the evidence has nothing to do with calling out a dubious assumption. The evidence presents an analogy.

   1%
3. C

   Correct89% picked this

   argues that an action might not be appropriate by suggesting that a corresponding action in an analogous

   Why this is right

   "Argues X by doing Y" means that X should match the Conclusion and Y should match the Evidence. Was the conclusion saying "an action might not be appropriate"? Yes: people should not necessarily try to rid themselves of this tendency. Was the evidence saying that an analogous action is not appropriate? Yes: people should not try to rid their visual system of the "error" of thinking that parallel lines converge.

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

   89%
4. D

   Weak Conclusion / Evidence Match4% picked this

   argues that two situations are similar by establishing that the same action would be reasonable

   This is tempting in the sense that it's also alluding to an argument involving an Analogy, but the details don't make sense. Was the conclusion saying, "Two situations are similar"? No. It said, "people should not necessarily try to rid themselves of this tendency (to make cognitive errors about happiness)". Was the evidence establishing that, "the same action would be reasoning in each of two situations"? Nope. The evidence just established that an action (changing your visual system so that parallel lines didn't converge) would be unreasonable in one situation. The author is assuming that two situations are similar and implying that an action is unreasonable in one case by demonstrating that a similar action is unreasonable in a separate, analogous case.

   4%
5. E

   Out of Scope: establish generalization4% picked this

   attempts to establish a generalization and then uses that generalization to argue against

   The author is arguing against a particular action. The conclusion says, "people should not necessarily try to rid themselves of this tendency". But the author isn't using any generalization she's established to argue against it. She's using a thought experiment; she's suggesting that since X would be an unreasonable action in one case, an action similar to X would be unreasonable in a similar case. The last sentence might be construed as a generalization that the author makes (that word has a very malleable definition), but personally I wouldn't consider that last sentence general. It's a very specific scenario where a surgeon offers to restructure your eyes and visual cortex so that parallel lines would no longer converge.

   4%