Flawed ReasoningDiff: Easy
Logic Breakdown
Passage Summary: A bird expert claims a species isn't vegetarian because he watched them eat mostly bugs every morning for a few months.
Conclusion: The belief that this bird species primarily eats vegetation is incorrect.
Reasoning: Observations made every morning over several months showed that more than 50% of the birds' diet consisted of animal sources.
Analysis: The ornithologist is making a sweeping claim about the species' entire diet based on a very specific, limited window of observation. The flaw lies in the sampling: the expert only watched the birds in the morning. It is entirely possible that these birds have a high-protein breakfast of insects but spend the rest of the day grazing on plants. Look for an answer that highlights this potential lack of representativeness in the data collected.
Conclusion: The belief that this bird species primarily eats vegetation is incorrect.
Reasoning: Observations made every morning over several months showed that more than 50% of the birds' diet consisted of animal sources.
Analysis: The ornithologist is making a sweeping claim about the species' entire diet based on a very specific, limited window of observation. The flaw lies in the sampling: the expert only watched the birds in the morning. It is entirely possible that these birds have a high-protein breakfast of insects but spend the rest of the day grazing on plants. Look for an answer that highlights this potential lack of representativeness in the data collected.
Passage Stimulus
Passage Redacted
Unlock Full Passage6.The reasoning in the ornithologist's argument is most vulnerable to criticism on the grounds that the argument
Correct Answer
D
D identifies the unaddressed possibility that birds eat differently at other times of day or at night, undermining the inference from morning-only observations to an all-purpose dietary claim.
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