PT151 S2 Q23 ExplanationA gram of the artificial sweetener

Answer choices, explained

1. A

   Bad Premise Match6% picked this

   People sometimes develop a preference for foods that they initially disliked. So if you dislike a new food, then you will eventually

   There aren't any details in the premise about "ingredient 1 has more of property A, per unit, then ingredient 2", so I'd move on.

   6%
2. B

   Weak Logic Match19% picked this

   Most people own more books than televisions. Moreover, it takes longer to read a book than to watch an episode of a television show.

   We could say that "Books have more Property A than TV Shows", if we thought of Property A as "time-consuming". To mimic the author's move to Intermediate Conclusion, though, we'd need to say "Something containing books is more time-consuming than something containing TV shows". If we had said, "Thus it would take someone longer to read all the books in their study than to watch all the shows in their Netflix queue", it would be replicating the flaw of, "Wait a sec --- how many books are in the study vs. how many shows are in the Netflix queue?" Instead, this is about how many books people own vs. how many televisions they own.

   19%
3. C

   Correct51% picked this

   Joe’s piggy bank has only pennies in it, and Maria’s has only nickels. Nickels are worth much more than pennies. It therefore follows that

   Why this is right

   This is a tough correct answer because it only deals with the author's flaw in drawing her subsidiary conclusion. It never gets into the final conclusion. Nickels have more of property A (monetary value) than pennies do. Thus, something with nickels (Maria's bank) has more property A than something with pennies (Joe's bank). This is vulnerable to the same objection we had with the original argument: how many grams of aspartame are in an aspartame soda vs. how many grams of sugar are in a sugary soda? = how many nickels are in Maria's bank vs. how many pennies are in Joe's bank?

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

   51%
4. D

   Inverts Premise And Conclusion18% picked this

   Stephanie likes hot summer weather much more than Katherine does. So the place where Stephanie grew up must have had more days of hot

   The original argument went from a Premise about exposure to sweetness to a Conclusion about developing a preference for sweetness. This argument reverses that and goes from a Premise about preference to a Conclusion about exposure.

   18%
5. E

   Bad Conclusion Match5% picked this

   Guillermo has a much shorter drive to work than Abdul does. So Guillermo’s estimate of the average commute for workers in the country as

   The conclusion is about making an estimate; it's hard to see how that would match either of the two conclusions. We could say that Guillermo's commute has less of property X (drive time) than Abdul's commute does. But then we would need a move that is saying "something with Guillermo's commute in it has more property X than something with Abdul's commute in it". For example, "Thus, Guillermo spends more time commuting each week than Abdul does", to which we might object, "Wait a sec — how many days a week does Guillermo vs. Abdul go to work?"

   5%