Logical Reasoning

PT23 · S2 · Q21 The cities of Oldtown and Spoonville

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The cities of Oldtown and Spoonville are the same in area and size of population.

Conclusion

Health problems caused by crowded living conditions must be as widespread in Spoonville.

Evidence (since)

Health problems caused by crowded living conditions are widespread in Oldtown.

And Oldtown and Spoonville are the same in area and in terms of population.

Evaluate

This is very explicitly an argument by comparison. The author thinks that .

Whenever we're trying to weaken or criticize a comparison, our first thought is to think of some important difference between the two things being compared.

Since the cities have the same area and population, they have the same "population density". If they each have 10,000 people over an area of 50 square miles, then they each have a population density of 200 people per square mile.

The author is looking at health problem caused by crowded living conditions, and thinking that since these cities have equal population density, they would have similar issues with crowded living conditions.

But the two cities might differ greatly in terms of how many, if any, crowded living facilities there are.

It could be that Oldtown's city area is mostly covered by uninhabited hills and forests, but there's one major city where most of its 20,000 people live. Meanwhile, in Spoonville, it's a bunch of sparse suburban and exurban neighborhoods. It's all single-family homes, so there aren't really any crowded living facilities.

Even if they both have crowded living conditions, the two cities might differ in terms of how well such facilities are run, in terms of sanitation and good public health practices.

Goal

Let's look for an answer complaining that the author is making far too confident a comparison, merely on the grounds that both cities have the same population density. They are failing to consider potential differences between the cities that would lead to very different levels of concern in regards to health problems caused by crowded living conditions.

21.

The reasoning in the argument is most vulnerable to criticism on the grounds that the argument

  1. presupposes without warrant that the

    Contradicts Author

    Since this answer begins with presumes without justification / presupposes without warrant, we treat it like Necessary Assumption. Was the author assuming that "health problems widespread within a city cannot be caused by living conditions in that city"? No, the author said the opposite. She said that certain widespread health problems within Oldtown are caused by crowded living conditions in that city.

    22% picked this

  2. fails to distinguish between the

    Doesn't Fail to Distinguish

    The author talks about both the area (the size of the geographic region) and the total population. The author doesn't need to distinguish them. She's telling us about both of them because you combine those two things in order to know what a city's population density is.

    14% picked this

  3. fails to indicate whether average

    Out of Scope: life expectancy

    It's true that the author failed to talk about life expectancy, but that's not why we're mad at the author's logic. We're mad that the author is overconfidently assuming that since cities O and S have the same population density, they will have the same level of health problems related to crowded living conditions.

    1% picked this

  4. fails to distinguish between those

    Out of Scope: easy vs. hard

    We aren't mad at the author for failing to differentiate between easy to treat health problems and harder to treat ones. Her argument had nothing to do with the how treatable these health problems are; It only had to do with how widespread they are.

    1% picked this

  5. Correct

    fails to take into account

    Why this is right

    Since this starts with fails to consider / overlooks the possibility, we treat it like Weaken. Can we object to this author by saying, "Hey, author -- even though these two cities may have identical population density (same population / same area), they may be way different in terms of living conditions"? Sure! That's sort of what we were saying before. Maybe Oldtown has a lot of high-rise apartment dwellings and thus a lot of crowded living conditions, whereas Spoonville has a bunch of single-family homes more evenly dispersed throughout its land area. The general form of this answer is, "fails to consider that [evidence] is consistent with [something that goes against conclusion]"

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

    63% picked this

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