Logical Reasoning

PT7 · S1 · Q19 When Alicia Green borrowed a

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When Alicia Green borrowed a neighbor’s car without permission, the police merely gave her a warning.

Supporting Facts.

Alicia and Peter both borrowed a neighbor's car without permission. Peter was charged; Alicia got only a warning. Peter's car was damaged (by a taxi) and Alicia's was not. Since the taxi, not Peter, caused the damage, the damage difference does not reflect any difference in the blameworthiness of Peter's and Alicia's behavior.

Evaluate

This is Must Be False, so we're looking for an answer that contradicts what we know. They're only asking us about the claims leading up to the conclusion, so the last sentence is irrelevant here.

The correct answer on MBF usually contradicts a conditional in the stimulus or contradicts some MBT inference we get by combining ideas.

However, this stimulus has no conditionals, and it's not clear what ideas we could combine to derive some MBT inference.

Goal

So, let's be flexible and just look for an answer that contradicts something we were told.

19.

If all of the claims offered in support of the conclusion are accurate, each of the following could be true except:

  1. The interests of justice would

    Could Be True

    This is a value judgment about what the police should have done with Peter. It does not conflict with any premise. In fact, it seems pretty compatible with the idea that Peter and Alicia should have faced similar fates since there was no difference in the blameworthiness of their behavior.

    20% picked this

  2. Alicia Green had never before

    Could Be True

    We have no facts about Alicia's past, we can't contradict a claim about her past.

    7% picked this

  3. Correct

    Peter Foster was hit by

    Why this is right

    If Peter ran a red light at the moment of the collision, then Peter's own blameworthy behavior contributed to getting hit, meaning the damage to his car was due to something blameworthy he did. That directly contradicts the explicit premise: "since it was the taxi that caused the damage this difference was not due to any difference in the blameworthiness of their behavior." According to this answer, there was a difference in the blameworthiness of their behavior: one drove cautiously and the other ran a red light.

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

    59% picked this

  4. Alicia Green barely missed hitting

    Could Be True

    This sort of feels like the inverse of (C). Now Alicia is the wreckless driver! But the author has said nothing about how either of them drove leading up to getting pulled over. And the fact that Alicia nearly hit a pedestrian at some point in her joyride doesn't contradict that "since the taxi caused the damage, the damage-difference between Alicia's borrowed car and Peter's is not due to any difference in the blameworthiness of their behavior". (C) is an answer about that damage. This is an answer about a time period / topic we never discussed, so it doesn't contradict anything we read.

    8% picked this

  5. Peter Foster had been cited

    Could Be True

    We have no facts about Peter's or Alicia's prior record, so we can't contradict a claim about their prior records.

    6% picked this

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