Logic Breakdown

Passage Summary: Someone claims that because a party's economic plan didn't stop inflation, their theories must be wrong, even though the plan might have failed simply because it wasn't actually put into practice.

Conclusion: The political party's economic theories were incorrect.

Reasoning: The argument assumes that because a predicted outcome (lower inflation) did not occur, one specific part of the necessary conditions (sound theories) must have been absent, ignoring the other part (successful implementation).

Analysis: The flaw here involves a compound sufficient condition: (Sound Theories + Implementation) -> Lower Inflation. The author observes 'Not Lower Inflation' and concludes 'Not Sound Theories.' However, logically, 'Not Lower Inflation' only tells us that at least one of the two conditions failed; it doesn't prove it was the theories specifically. It could have been the implementation that failed. To parallel this, look for an argument that has two requirements for a result, fails to get that result, and then blames just one of those requirements without ruling out the other. It's a bit like blaming a recipe for a bad cake when you might have just forgotten to turn on the oven.

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24.

The flawed reasoning in which one of the following arguments most closely resembles the flawed reasoning in the argument above?

Correct Answer
C
C matches the flawed form: (Sold subsidiaries ∧ Used cash to buy patent) → Stock doubled; Stock did not increase; therefore Did not sell subsidiaries. It illegitimately denies only one conjunct when the failure could be due to not using the cash to buy the patent.
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