Q2 - Board member: The J Foundation

[ohthatpatrick]

Question Type:
Flaw

Stimulus Breakdown:
Conclusion: Your work fails to meet the conditions of the grant.
Evidence: The conditions of the grant were that "your work can't contain any material detrimental to J Foundation's reputation", and your work never mentions the great things the J Foundation has accomplished.

Answer Anticipation:
There's a pretty big leap there. Violating the condition means that we "said something BAD about J Foundation". And they're just accusing us of having "NOT mentioned something GOOD about J Foundation". So we could prephrase that move by saying the author assumes that "NOT mentioning J's good stuff" is akin to "saying something detrimental to J's reputation".

Correct Answer:
C

Answer Choice Analysis:
(A) Out of scope = "high intellectual value". The first half is fine, but the second half would need to be about being detrimental to J's reputation.

(B) Not a Conditional Logic Flaw. Although we could force the "conditions of the grant" to be conditional logic, it would be a stretch. And the author doesn't reason backwards. She just thinks "if you didn't mention the good stuff J does, then you're harming J's reputation".

(C) Yes! Exactly as we predicted. The author assumes this, and if we negated it, it would ruin the author's argument.

(D) It doesn't weaken this argument to say that people USUALLY STRIVE to meet the conditions. The author can still argue that THIS person did NOT meet the conditions, whether this person strived to do so or not.

(E) This doesn't weaken, since meeting "all but one condition" would still qualify as "failing to meet the conditions of the grant".

Takeaway/Pattern: To me, the most effective way to unpack the logic here is go backwards from the Conclusion. We violated the terms of the grant? Oh, what were the terms? We weren't allowed to put in any material detrimental to J's reputation. Oh, did we put something in the work that was detrimental to J's reputation? No --- you're just complaining that we DIDN'T mention good stuff about J. That's not the same. Failing to bolster a reputation is not the same as actively tarnishing it.

#officialexplanation

[Shiggins]

I am not sure but I do not know if I have the right answer for this question.

The answer key says A:

"Takes for granted that a work that never mentions any laudable achievements cannot be of high intellectual value."

But I do not see how that trumps answer choice C which states:

"presumes without providing justification that a work that does not mention a foundations laudable achievements is harmful to that foundations reputation."

I just want to make sure of question three referring to the breaking of habits. My answer key says A but I am having tough time ruling out B. Sorry about putting it in like this but I will be locked out of posting

[daniel.g.winter]

It looks like you're looking at the wrong answer key. The answer for question 2 on Section #3 of PT 55 is C. So you are okay. Maybe you were looking at the answer key for Section #1 of LR, where Question 2 had the correct answer of A?

Edit: And yea, I just realized you had posted this in Section #1 so that's probably the issue. And this thread will probably be moved to the proper section.