#2 - number of Grandville’s wealthiest citizens have been

[srcline@noctrl.edu]

Hello,

So not understanding this question at all. Can someone please explain why E is the correct answer. Where in the authors argument do they : generalize on the basis of what could be exceptional cases? The author does generalize b/c they are saying that no wealthy people should be on the GP committee b/c a number of G's wealthiest citizens have been criminals. But I'm not seeing the exceptional cases part.

Answer choices A and B are also really confusing for me.

Thankyou
Sarah

[David Boyle]

Hello,

So not understanding this question at all. Can someone please explain why E is the correct answer. Where in the authors argument do they : generalize on the basis of what could be exceptional cases? The author does generalize b/c they are saying that no wealthy people should be on the GP committee b/c a number of G's wealthiest citizens have been criminals. But I'm not seeing the exceptional cases part.

Answer choices A and B are also really confusing for me.

Thankyou
Sarah

Hello,

The criminals could be just a few of the wealthy people, not all of them.
A and B should be confusing, since they don't really help at all.

David

[srcline@noctrl.edu]

Hello David,

Thankyou for your explanations. But I'm still a bit confused by this. My issue with answer choice E is the use of the words "exceptional cases". The author never says that they are exceptional cases.

Thankyou
Sarah

[Robert Carroll]

Sarah,

The author's reasoning was flawed. The author wouldn't say this, though! The author thought the reasoning worked out ok, or else he/she would never have attempted this argument. Thus, we're identifying the flaw that the author missed (or didn't want us to pay any attention to!) - just because some wealthy citizens are criminals does not mean they all are. It is possible that the "some" citizens are exceptional cases - so we could create a committee of wealthy citizens that did not include those criminals. Thus the author's reasoning for excluding ALL wealthy people is mistaken.

Robert Carroll

[PresidentLSAT]

Hello Powerscore,

I got this question right but was confused by A.

Would A have been close to identifying the flaw if the stimulus concluded that, the wealthy people on the committee are criminals?

My reason for choosing E was that the author generalized on the body of the committee based on instances where the wealthy people on it comprised of criminals.

Many thanks

[Robert Carroll]

President,

Your reasoning for answer choice (E) is perfect.

Answer choice (A) has causal language in it, so this could be the flaw only if the stimulus contained causal reasoning. There is none there, so this isn't correct. If the conclusion was that the wealthy people on the committee are criminals, that still wouldn't involve causation.

Robert Carroll