Q19 - Jane: According to an article...

[jade.harry1]

Could someone breakdown this question for me? I always struggle when structure/method of reasoning questions get a little abstract, and I don't really understand why it would be an error of reasoning for Alan to show that the conclusion is false...

[bbirdwell]

Jane's argument:
Premise: an article says that children's coordination suffers when they watch a lot of tv.
Conclusion: we should restrict amt of time J & M watch tv

Alan:
premise: article says only children under 3 are affected that way
conclusion: we don't need to restrict J & M's tv-viewing

It's always a good idea to try and spot the flaw before you go to the choices. If you find yourself thinking "I don't see anything wrong with Alan's argument," you should give it a little more effort before proceeding, and focus on his conclusion.

Pretty strong conclusion, don't you think? That the kids' tv-watching does NOT need to be restricted? And why is Alan saying that? Because this one study regarding coordination is based on 3 yr olds.

What Alan has done effectively is undermine Jane's argument. She says we should restrict the viewing because of this article. Alan points out how the article doesn't apply. Therefore, he has successfully argued that they don't need to restrict the tv-viewing FOR THAT PARTICULAR REASON.

He has not, however, made an effective argument for NOT RESTRICTING THE VIEWING in general.

That's what (B) says. He hasn't actually proved that Jane is wrong (i.e. that we shouldn't restrict their viewing). He's merely proved that the article does not provide a good reason for doing so.

See the difference?

[WaltGrace1983]

Is answer choice (E), "fails to distinguish the consequences of a certain practice from the causes of the practice," a simple assertion that A causes B when - in actuality, B causes A? For example...

In a study conducted by Manhattan prep, it was found that there is a strong connection between getting enough sleep and scoring highly on the LSAT. Thus, it seems that getting sleep causes one to score highly.

The author ignores the possibility that scoring highly on the LSAT actually causes one to sleep because using your brain so intensively for 3 minutes straight makes you drowsy.

[jm.kahn]

I found this question very confusing because Alan, speaker-2, clearly seems to be referring to not restricting tv for the reason given by speaker-1. We are asked to not stray outside the bounds of what the argument has given us, and in this case, it seems by accepting B as a credited choice we are doing just that and claiming that there could be thousands of other reasons tv must be restricted.

Also, Alan only says "it is not necessary that we restrict TV". He is not saying "we should have TV".

Based on the argument and information we are provided, it seems correct to say that it's not necessary that we restrict tv, because the only reason we were given for restricting tv was that it causes hand eye coordination suffering. But when that reason was undermined and found to be void, there was no other reason given for restricting tv. So it seems reasonable to say that it's tv restriction isn't necessary.

Can an expert resolve this?

[DevinD793]

In regards to answer choice B, is this an error in the power of evidence? Is Alan basically arguing that because there is some evidence against Jane's position, that position is necessarily false?