A recent poll of a large number

Answer choices

1. A

   No Impact16% picked this

   ignores the possibility that a significant number of households might have both a cat

   Does it hurt the argument to say that lots of houses have both cats and dogs? Nope. Any house that has both a cat and a dog would be totally neutral to this conclusion. We need to assess whether more college grads live with a cat or live with a dog. The ones that live with both a cat and a dog are just meaningless when it comes to figuring out which way the overall number tilts (because by having both cats and dogs in the same house, those college grads won't tip the comparison in either direction). Suppose students A, B, C, D live in cat-only houses. E and F live in cat-and-dog houses. G, H, I live in dog-only houses. How many of those people live in a house with a cat? 6. How many live in a house with a dog? 5. The cat-and-dog house make no difference to the final comparison. We can tell that cat houses beat dog houses simply by comparing cat-only houses (A, B, C, D) to dog-only houses (G, H, I) to see that there is one more cat house than dog house.

   16%
2. B

   Correct49% picked this

   takes for granted that there are not significantly more households with a dog than ones

   Why this is right

   Does the author need to assume this? Well, whenever we're looking at a Necessary Assumption answer (which is what "takes for granted / presumes / fails to establish" indicates), we know that it's tempting to see an idea being ruled-out with the word "not". If we negate this idea, does it become an objection? Does it hurt the argument to say, "There are significantly more dog houses than cat houses?" Sure, it hurts. Let's say there are 100 houses with cats and 1000 houses with dogs. 47% of the 100 cat houses have college grads, so that's 47 college grads that live in a house with a cat. 38% of the 1000 dog houses have college grads, so that's 380 college grads that live in a house with a dog. That would mean the conclusion is wrong. College grads are more likely to live in a dog house than in a cat house. Since negating the answer choice turned it into an objection, we know that this really WAS something the author was assuming.

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

   49%
3. C

   No Impact3% picked this

   fails to consider how many of the households have at least one person without

   People without a degree are meaningless to the tally we care about for the conclusion: how many college grads live with cats vs. how many college grads live with dogs

   3%
4. D

   Out of Scope7% picked this

   fails to consider to what extent people with university degrees participate in decisions about whether their households have

   Out of Scope: why they have cats/dogs This argument doesn't care about why these houses have a cat, dog, or both. This is only a statistical argument. The author isn't trying to come up with a causal story that accounts for why college grads may be more likely to live with one type of pet than another. The math doesn't care whether the college grad picked the pet or whether one of her housemates did. If she lives in a house with a cat, she counts towards that tally.

   7%
5. E

   Wrong Flaw25% picked this

   ignores the possibility that two things can be correlated without being

   This describes the famous Causal flaw, in which the author's evidence presents a curious fact and the conclusion overconfidently posits a causal explanation for that fact. This conclusion (as well as all the evidence) isn't causal. It's just mathematically descriptive.

   25%