Unplugged Practice Test: Logical Reasoning Set 2, Question 14 (Flaw)
Taking the test? Finish it first. This page shows the answer.
- Flaw questions ask you to name the reasoning error the argument commits, not to judge whether its conclusion is true.
- Before you read the choices, describe the argument's error in your own words. Most Flaw questions reward 1 of a small set of recurring patterns, so naming the pattern first keeps the trap answers from sounding right.
- Every question on this test is original, written to the same logical skeletons as real questions, and Steve checked every one himself before release.
The question
Ferraro: Complaints that our ski patrol closes runs too aggressively after a storm are misguided. Consider how much more dangerous this mountain would be if nobody ever closed a run at all.
14. Ferraro's reply is most open to the objection that it
- (A)treats a complaint about what a practice brings about as though it were a complaint about the practice's inherent worth
- (B)assumes that an authority merits deference simply because it holds authority
- (C)assumes that a practice is sound because it has long been done that way
- (D)answers a complaint about how a practice is carried out by pointing only to the drawbacks of abandoning the practice entirely
- (E)mistakes an effect of a certain situation for the cause of that situation
DWhy (D) is correct
The complaint is that the patrol closes runs too aggressively after a storm, a complaint about degree. Ferraro answers only by pointing to how dangerous the mountain would be if nobody ever closed a run, the extreme of no closures at all, not the complaint anyone raised. That's exactly (D): he answers a complaint about how the practice is carried out by pointing only to the drawbacks of scrapping the practice altogether.
Why the other answers are wrong
AWhy (A) is wrong
(A) doesn't fit, since Ferraro never recasts the complaint as one about the practice's inherent worth; the complaint about aggressiveness was already about outcomes.
BWhy (B) is wrong
(B) is wrong too, because Ferraro never leans on the patrol's authority as a reason to trust its calls.
CWhy (C) is wrong
(C) doesn't fit, since Ferraro never claims the practice is sound just because it's long-standing.
EWhy (E) is wrong
(E) fails because there's no cause-and-effect claim here to get backward, only a comparison to an extreme nobody proposed.
Common questions
What type of question is this?
Flaw. Flaw questions ask you to name the reasoning error the argument commits, not to judge whether its conclusion is true.
How do I get better at Flaw questions?
Before you read the choices, describe the argument's error in your own words. Most Flaw questions reward 1 of a small set of recurring patterns, so naming the pattern first keeps the trap answers from sounding right. The free LSAT cheat sheet lists the wrong-answer patterns to watch for on every type.
