Logical Reasoning

PT8 · S1 · Q6 Harry Trevalga: You and your publication

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Harry Trevalga: You and your publication have unfairly discriminated against my poems.

Main Conclusion

Our policy and practice is perfectly fair.

Intermediate Conclusion (hence)

The judge can't possibly know who wrote the poems.

Evidence

The judge never sees the name of the poet whose poem she is reading.

Evaluate

Since there are two reasoning moves, we can scrutinize both.

We have a missing link of, , and one of .

Goal

Those missing links could themselves be the answers, but otherwise the answer might rule out an idea that would object to those assumption.

Like maybe you can't see the name, but you can still figure out who wrote the poem some other way (writing style? stationery? it smells like their cologne)

Or maybe the judge doesn't know who wrote each poem, but the practice still isn't fair (because she always decides to just choose the first three poems she reads)

The publisher makes which one of the following assumptions in replying to Trevalga’s charges of unfair discrimination?

The poetry editor does not
Irrelevant Quality: editor's grudge
If we negate this "not", we hear that "the editor DOES bear a grudge against Harry". Does that weaken? Does that help us argue, "See, this isn't fair?" No, because the author will remind us that the editor doesn't know the name of the poet who wrote any poem that she's judging, so, he presumes, she wouldn't know which one is Harry's.
7% picked this
It is not unusual for
Out of Scope: Submission Patterns
If we negate this lovable "not", we'd hear that it's very weird for someone to contribute lots of poems but never get accepted. Oooh, that sounds like Harry is getting shafted, right? That weakens? Not really, because it doesn't address the judging process at all. Even if Harry's experience with this publication really does seem like they specifically hate him, we still don't have a way to say that judging process was biased. The poems are anonymous. Even if this magazine does hate Harry, how would they use their hatred in anonymous judging?
3% picked this
Correct
The poetry editor cannot recognize
Why this is right
This assumption provides us with one of the two missing links we cited, "If there's no name, then you can't figure out who the poem is by" It uses language specific to Harry, but has the same gist. We treat "unless" as "if-not", so this translates into If Harry's name is not attached to the poem, the editor can't tell it's a Harry poem. Whenever we see conditional answers on Nec Assump, we look at the reasoning move the answer describes and ask ourselves if it matches the argument's logical flow. Did the author establish that Harry's name wasn't attached, and then say/assume they wouldn't be able to tell that Harry wrote the poem? Yes!
Skill tested: Necessary Assumption · how this choice captures the argument's function is the move to repeat next time.
85% picked this
The poetry editor’s decisions on
Opposite
It seems like this author is saying the editor's judging is completely fair, i.e. is is decided strictly on merit. If we negated this, it would strengthen.
3% picked this
Harry Trevalga submitted his poems
Out of Scope: Pen Name
Whether Harry used his real name or his nom de plume doesn't change the conversation. The publisher will say "there were NO names attached to the poems being judged".
2% picked this

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