Logical Reasoning

PT149 · S4 · Q10 Advertisement: Auto accidents are the most

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Advertisement: Auto accidents are the most common cause of whiplash injury, a kind of injury that is caused by a sudden sharp motion of the neck.

Conclusion (that is why)

You should insist on receiving LIC's complete course of treatment for whiplash after any accident that involves a fall or a bump on the head.

Evidence

Whiplash is caused by a sudden sharp motion of the neck. Many types of accidents can produce a sudden sharp motion of the next (a fall, a bump on the head, being shoved from behind, or most commonly an auto accident).

Evaluate

Well, this conclusion is completely overstated, but that's pretty common for an Advertisement. They're prone to hyperbole. The conclusion is conditional, since it has the word "any".

accident that complete course involves fall or → of treatment for whiplash bump of head from LIC

To argue with a conditional conclusion, you have to think of a way where the Left side would be true, but the Right wouldn't.

How is it possible that we have a fall or bump on the head but we needn't insist on a complete course of treatment for whiplash from LIC?

There are a lot of different stories we could tell: - the fall/bump just aren't that bad to merit any medical attention - the fall/bump doesn't actually involve whiplash - the fall/bump involves whiplash, but we don't have health insurance or enough money to pay for LIC's complete course of treatment, so we're going to just YouTube whiplash exercises for free - the fall/bump involves whiplash, and we have means of paying for treatments, but we don't need the complete course of treatment, when just part of it would suffice - the fall/bump involves whiplash, and we have the means of paying, and we need a complete course of treatment, but it doesn't need to be LIC's. Maybe another clinic is more convenient / less expensive / better rated.

Goal

Look for an answer that presents a way to argue that one might have a fall or bump on the head but not need to get LIC's complete whiplash treatment.

10.

Which one of the following, if true, provides the strongest basis for criticizing the reasoning in the advertisement?

Being shoved from behind rarely
Out of Scope
The conclusion is about falls or bumps on the head, not shoves from behind.
2% picked this
Auto accidents often involve falling
No Impact
The conclusion doesn't care where our fall or head-bump came from, so it's pretty immaterial what frequency of them result from auto accidents. The fact that an auto accident might have led to our fall or head-bump doesn't give us any way to argue that "See? In this case, we needn't get a complete course of treatment from LIC."
1% picked this
Nonautomobile accidents other than those
No Impact
This has the same feel as (B). Some falls and head-bumps come from auto accidents; some come from non-auto accidents. So what? The conclusion doesn't care where the falls or head-bumps came from, so the frequency with which they come from cars or not-cars has no impact.
4% picked this
Correct
It is very uncommon for
Why this is right
This weakens the argument by giving us a storyline in which "we have a fall or head-bump", but "we do not need to insist on a complete course of whiplash treatment". After all, if most falls or head-bumps don't result in a sudden sharp motion of the neck, then they don't result in "whiplash", so there'd be no reason to get a complete course of whiplash treatment. This correct answer is easier to like if you see the buried conditional trigger in the conclusion (any) and think of how strong and universal that makes the conclusion: every single time you have a fall or a bump on the head, you should get a complete course of whiplash treatment?
Skill tested: Flaw · how this choice captures the argument's function is the move to repeat next time.
78% picked this
The appropriate treatment for whiplash
Strengthens
If anything, this lack of distinction would help the author's conclusion (which is not distinguishing between different types of falls or bumps on the head). If the appropriate treatments for different types of whiplash were different, that could potentially be an objection to the conclusion, which is making a blanket recommendation for all injuries of a certain type.
15% picked this

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