Logical Reasoning

PT138 · S2 · Q14 City dog licensing records

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City dog licensing records show that more cocker spaniels are registered to addresses in the Flynn Heights neighborhood than to addresses in all other neighborhoods combined.

Conclusion

If an animal control office finds a stray cocker spaniel anywhere near Flynn Heights, it is likely that the dog belongs to someone in Flynn Heights.

Evidence

More cocker spaniels are registered to addresses in Flynn Heights than to addresses in all other neighborhoods combined.

Evaluate

Okay, I know this isn't officially part of our job on this problem, but wtf is going on is Flynn Heights that they are this obsessed with cocker spaniels?

The author's conclusion is a probabilistic one. When someone is saying, , the evidence we need for that is that "Most X's are Y".

for example, if we knew Most of Lenny's socks have holes in them.

we could fairly conclude If we are randomly given one of Lenny's socks, it is likely to have holes in it.

Since this argument is concluding that a stray cocker spaniel near Flynn Heights likely belongs to someone in Flynn Heights, it requires evidence that most strays near Flynn Heights belong to someone in Flynn Heights.

Instead, what we know is most registered cocker spaniels belong to someone in Flynn Heights.

If we wanted to object to this argument, we could say that most strays do not belong to anyone near Flynn Heights. Maybe they belong to no one. Maybe they belong to people in the neighboring city. We know that Flynn Heights has most of the registered cocker spaniels, but maybe other neighborhoods love cocker spaniels but hate registering their dogs (i.e. maybe there are a ton of unregistered cocker spaniels, and maybe more of them are likely to be stray).

Goal

Evaluate answer choices are written as questions or toss-ups, but we want to find an answer choice where one of the possible answers to that answer choice's question could be an Objection.

Since these are all phrased as "whether or not", we're looking for an answer choice where one of those two answers would weaken; it would allow us to argue that if an animal control officer finds a stray spaniel, it's actually likely that it's doesn't belong to a Flynn Heights resident.

14.

Which one of the following would be most useful to know in order to evaluate the argument?

whether cocker spaniels are more
No Impact: other breeds
We don't care about any other breeds, for what we're assessing here. We know that if someone finds a registered cocker spaniel, it's likely to belong to someone in Flynn Heights, but we don't know that if someone finds a stray cocker spaniel whether it will be registered or where it comes from. All we care about is registered vs. unregistered cocker spaniels, as well as cocker spaniels belonging to someone in this neighborhood or another neighborhood. We don't have any interest in comparing cocker spaniels to any other breed of dog.
2% picked this
whether there are more cocker
No Impact: other breeds
We don't care about any other breeds, for what we're assessing here. All we care about is registered vs. unregistered cocker spaniels, as well as cocker spaniels belonging to someone in this neighborhood vs. belonging to someone in another neighborhood. We don't have any interest in comparing cocker spaniels to any other breed of dog.
12% picked this
whether the city's animal control
No Impact
No Impact: other parts of the city We don't care about any other parts of the city, for what we're assessing here. We just need more information about the strays found in Flynn Heights. Are they registered / unregistered? If they belong to someone, is that someone more likely to live in Flynn or elsewhere? Finding dogs in other parts of the city is immaterial to this conversation.
5% picked this
whether the number of pets
No Impact: other pets
We don't care about any other pets, for what we're assessing here. We only care about cocker spaniels, whether they're registered, whether they're stray, whether they belong to someone who lives in Flynn or elsewhere. This answer would only be providing some info about pets per person, which is beyond the scope of the conclusion we're analyzing.
6% picked this
Correct
whether residents of Flynn Heights
Why this is right
This answer is a big dud, but it's the only one that's been on topic so far. The author is assuming that Flynn Heights has more cocker spaniels than all other neighborhoods combined. If that's true, then we can say that "most cocker spaniels live in FH". And if we can say that, then the author's conclusion is solid -- if we find a cocker spaniel, it's likely from FH. But the author hasn't said that FH has more cocker spaniels than all other neighborhoods combined, just that FH has more registered cocker spaniels than all other neighborhoods combined. If we say, "Yes, residents of FH are way more likely to license their dogs than are residents of other neighborhoods", then it attacks that assumption. We could say, "Author, if residents of other neighborhoods just don't bother to register their dogs, then it may be that the actual number of cocker spaniels in FH does not outnumber the actual number of cocker spaniels in all the other neighborhoods combined." If it turns out that "most cocker spaniels do not live in FH", then we are badly weakening the argument, and the positive version of this answer takes us closer to that objection.
Skill tested: Evaluate · how this choice captures the argument's function is the move to repeat next time.
75% picked this

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