Astronomer: This country's space agency

Answer choices

1. A

   Bad Premise Match16% picked this

   A government agency should not cancel a partially completed project unless the amount of money already spent on the project is small

   This rule on its face appears usable. It allows one to conclude "should not cancel". Can we trigger it? the amount of money already spent is not small relative → shouldn't cancel to agency's overall budget Do we know if the money already spent is not small relative to the space agency's overall budget? No. We weren't told anything about the agency's budget. We can't speculate.

   16%
2. B

   Correct83% picked this

   If more than half of the total cost of a project has already been spent, then the

   Why this is right

   On its face, this seems usable, as it would allow one to conclude that we "should continue the project" (which effectively communicates that we should not cancel it). Can we trigger the rule? Amount spent is more than half should the total cost of the project → complete Do we know if the money spent so far is more than half? Yes, I guess we do. If we've spent more already than we'd have to spend to finish it, then we've already spent more than half of the total cost. Imagine the total cost ends up being $100 million. By the logic of the premise, we've already spent more than $50 million, since what we'd have left to spend has to be less than that and still get us to $100 million. No one could / would have predicted this wording; it's just a reminder to stay flexible (especially on Sufficient Assumption and Principle-Justify, where historically we got used to being able to predict the same wording as was used in the argument.)

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

   83%
3. C

   Bad Conclusion Match1% picked this

   If it becomes clear that the total cost of a project will be more than twice the amount originally budgeted, then

   Scanning this answer and seeing that the right side of the arrow would say → should cancel is enough to get rid of this without further analysis.

   1%
4. D

   Opposite0% picked this

   One should not commit additional funding to a project just because one has spent considerable money on

   This is also a principle guiding us, or inclining us, to not spend anymore money. But we're trying to justify an argument that wants to spend more money to finish off the job, since we're closer to the finish line than we are to the starting point.

   0%
5. E

   Bad Premise Match Weak Conclusion Match0% picked this

   In determining which scientific projects to fund, governments should give priority to the projects that are most likely to

   This isn't super enticing, since it would only allow us to conclude "the government should give funding priority to this project", when we're hoping to say "should continue / should not cancel". But we can't trigger this rule, because we don't know if the new space telescope is "the most likely project to lead to important new discoveries". We can't speculate that just because it's a telescope it's one of the most likely things to lead to new discoveries.

   0%