Airport administrator: According to

Answer choices

1. A

   Unrelated to Argument: closer runways1% picked this

   The argument presumes, without providing justification, that building runways closer together will encourage pilots to be

   The background fact about potentially building runways closer to each other is not actually part of any of the reasoning that the author does. The argument we're examining is just about comparing the relative reliability of two different sources of information about plane landings.

   1%
2. B

   Correct48% picked this

   The argument overlooks the fact that those who make mistakes are often unreliable sources of

   Why this is right

   This gets at our potential objection that, "Even though the review of the flight reports was thorough, how accurate are these flight reports (compared to video tape)?" This answer is pointing out that if a commercial flight strays off course while landing, that reflects poorly on the pilots. They have a motive to be overly charitable to themselves in terms of adding or omitting "strayed off course on the landing" onto their flight report. If they are sometimes omitting to admit their bad landing in the flight report, then the number we get from them is likely to suggest that stray landings occur less frequently than they really do.

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

   48%
3. C

   Unrelated to Argument2% picked this

   The argument questions the integrity of those who are opposed to allowing runways to be

   Unrelated to Argument: closer runways Out of Scope: questions integrity The background fact about potentially building runways closer to each other is not actually part of any of the reasoning that the author does. The argument we're examining is just about comparing the relative reliability of two different sources of information about plane landings. Furthermore, the author never questions the integrity of any opponents of closer runways. In fact, the correct answer is pointing out that the author probably should be questioning the integrity of the pilot's log.

   2%
4. D

   Too Strong30% picked this

   The argument presumes, without justification, that the air traffic control tapes studied do not provide accurate

   The author doesn't have to assume that air traffic control tapes do not provide accurate information about specific flights. Even if we negate this and say "tapes do provide accurate information about specific flights", the author's argument isn't weakened. She can still argue that, "Yes tapes can provide accurate info about specific flights, but the figure we got from the pilot's reports is still the more reliable figure for the overall rate of stray landings, because it is a thorough study, not a partial review."

   30%
5. E

   Trap20% picked this

   The argument infers from a lack of conclusive evidence supporting the higher number's accuracy that

   Bad Conclusion Match Wrong Flaw: not Unproven vs. Untrue When an Flaw answer choice is structured, infers from X that Y we would ask ourselves if X matches the evidence and Y matches the conclusion. Did the evidence say "there is a lack of conclusive evidence supporting the higher number's accuracy"? Which is the higher number? It's technically 1 in 20,000, because these are fractions, so the smaller the denominator, the bigger the number. For example 1/20 > 1/2000 So did the evidence say something like, "There's a lack of conclusive evidence supporting the figure provided by the air traffic tapes?" No, not really. She said it was a "partial review", so maybe we could fudge that as a lack of conclusive evidence. But since this answer describes one of the ten famous flaws, we probably know that in a real Unproven vs. Untrue argument, the evidence would sound more explicitly like it was shooting down someone's attempt to support the higher number's accuracy. If we tolerated the evidence match from this answer choice, we'd move onto the conclusion. Was the conclusion saying, "the figure from the air traffic control tapes must be inaccurate"? No, too strong. The conclusion was that "the figure from the tapes is relatively unreliable compared to the figure from the pilot's reports".

   20%