Camille: Manufacturers of water-saving faucets

Answer choices

1. A

   Out of Scope11% picked this

   the cost of installing her water-saving faucet was less than her overall savings on

   She hasn't claimed that she's already made her money back, or that this water-saving faucet has already paid for itself, so she's not committed to assuming that she spent less to install this than what she's already saved from it. Her argument is just that she's been saving money every month, so they didn't exaggerate about what she'd save. You might know that an investment is supposedly going to take several years to pay for itself, but you could still gauge whether it's on track to do so by looking at how the first few months go.

   11%
2. B

   Correct63% picked this

   she saved as much on her water bills as the manufacturers' claims

   Why this is right

   If she thinks that the manufacturer's didn't exaggerate how much she'd save, then she believes she's saving as much as they promised she would. If we negated this assumption it would indeed be an objection: if she hasn't saved as much as the manufacturers claimed she would, then they were exaggerating their claims.

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

   63%
3. C

   Not a Good Objection15% picked this

   the manufacturers' claims about the savings expected from the installation of water-saving faucets are consistent

   Yes, she's probably assuming that the manufacturers' claims are not contradictory (inconsistent = contradictory). But that's not a great objection. She said, "Since I'm saving money each month, they must have been right about how much I'd save." If we said, "Oh, yeah? We'll you're assuming that the manufacturers' claims don't contradict each other" we would sound kind of crazy. This doesn't relate to the author's bad reasoning move from "saving money" to "saving as much as they promised".

   15%
4. D

   Out of Scope: "satisfied"9% picked this

   people who use water-saving faucets are satisfied with the low volume of water handled

   The truth value of the author's conclusion hinges only on whether she's saving as much water as the manufacturers claimed. So whether or not customers are satisfied with the volume of water is out of scope.

   9%
5. E

   Out of Scope: "installing more"2% picked this

   installing more water-saving faucets in her house would increase

   This author is only assessing whether the one faucet she did install did / didn't save her as much money as the manufacturers' claims suggested it would. For the sake of this argument, there's no reason she needs to assume anything about a hypothetical world in which she installs more of these faucets. Assumptions ≠ other things the author would probably believe. This answer is something the author would probably believe, but her move from "I'm saving money on this faucet" to "The manufacturers didn't exaggerate how much money I would save on this faucet" doesn't require any information about hypothetical additional faucets.

   2%