#18 - It is impossible to do science without measuring

[lilmissunshine]

Hello,

I was wondering how answer (A) and (B) are different. My diagram for the stimulus is as follows:

Science Measuring
Measuring Units
S M U Arbitrary

(A): Performing difficult music Musical skill Long hour Tedious
(B): Run business Advertise Expensive

Why is (A) correct but not (B)? Thank you very much.

[Jennifer Janowsky]

Hi!

This is a great question, and it took me a while to spot the difference. The biggest difference here is sort of a trick. Option (B) states "You have to advertise to run an expanding business," however makes the logical jump that advertisement is necessary to run a business at all. In reality, the conclusion should be "is expensive to run an expanding business." That's all you were missing here!

[lilmissunshine]

Thank you so much Jennifer! That was really tricky

[dreadpr69]

I really hate that I'm fighting this answer, but why does it equate playing difficult music with the ability to perform difficult music?

When I read this, I thought that the conclusion "playing difficult music is tedious" was different from what was mentioned in the support "long training is tedious and required to play difficult music."

However, I didn't think that playing difficult music and the ability to play difficult music were the same thing, and I don't see how they are equated.

For example, if it requires long, tedious training in order to be a scratch golfer, that doesn't necessarily mean scratch golf is tedious because after the tedious training it may be very easy for a scratch golfer to play at that level.

Moreover, this flaw in the reasoning is different from the flaw in the reasoning in the stimulus.

The stimulus says that science is arbitrary because it relies on measurements that are arbitrary.

Thie correct answer says that doing something is tedious because the steps required to gain the ability to do that thing are tedious.

How are these two things the same thing?

Like obviously A has to be right but where I am going wrong? This is driving me crazy

[Robert Carroll]

dread,

I think you're identifying what's wrong with the stimulus and answer choice (A) at the same time. Science might not be arbitrary just because one of its requirements is arbitrary. Performing difficult music might not be tedious just because one of its requirements is tedious.

Each argument involves conditional reasoning. The stimulus gives requirements for science, and then claims that science will have some feature of one of its necessary conditions. The same is true in answer choice (A).

I think you're making far too much of the topic of answer choice (A), which is an "ability" as you say. Parallel Reasoning/Parallel Flaw answer choices do not have to parallel the topic of the stimulus.

Robert Carroll