Flawed Parallel ReasoningDiff: Hardest
Logic Breakdown
Passage Summary: Two people claimed to support a plan. If they both had, it would have been approved. It wasn't approved, so the speaker blames one person specifically while believing the other.
Conclusion: Henning must have failed to support the proposal, despite his claims that he did.
Reasoning: If both Stallworth and Henning had supported the proposal, it would have been approved; since it was not approved, at least one of them did not support it.
Analysis: The argument correctly identifies that at least one person didn't support the proposal because the joint condition for success wasn't met. However, it arbitrarily decides that Stallworth is telling the truth and Henning is lying. To find a parallel, look for a structure where a necessary combination fails, and the author blames one specific part of that combination without any evidence to favor it over the other. It’s a classic case of 'he said, she said,' where the author just picks a side for no reason.
Conclusion: Henning must have failed to support the proposal, despite his claims that he did.
Reasoning: If both Stallworth and Henning had supported the proposal, it would have been approved; since it was not approved, at least one of them did not support it.
Analysis: The argument correctly identifies that at least one person didn't support the proposal because the joint condition for success wasn't met. However, it arbitrarily decides that Stallworth is telling the truth and Henning is lying. To find a parallel, look for a structure where a necessary combination fails, and the author blames one specific part of that combination without any evidence to favor it over the other. It’s a classic case of 'he said, she said,' where the author just picks a side for no reason.
Passage Stimulus
Passage Redacted
Unlock Full Passage25.Which one of the following arguments is most similar in its flawed reasoning to the argument above?
Correct Answer
A
A mirrors the flaw: it accepts the TV news report (accident on Aylmer) as if true and, using the conditional “if Aylmer, then Morgan could not have witnessed it,” concludes the newspaper’s contrary claim is mistaken. Like the stimulus, it uncritically trusts one source to reject the other.
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