Q22 - Access newspaper stories

[mshinners]

Question Type:
ID the Flaw

Stimulus Breakdown:
Conclusion: Everyone should have access to multiple papers.

Premises:
Every story has 2 sides. Important stories should have all sides covered. No newspaper covers all sides of all stories.

I. Conclusion: Some important stories not adequately covered by only one paper.

Answer Anticipation:
Interesting question with a lot of moving parts!

The main conclusion here is actually valid! If important stories should have all sides covered, and some important stories are not adequately covered by a single paper, then everyone should have access to multiple papers.

Since the main conclusion is valid, the gap must be between the premises and intermediate conclusion.

Simplifying the argument at this point can help:
Important stories need all sides covered.
Newspapers sometimes don't cover all sides of a story.
Therefore, some important stories not adequately covered.

Where's the gap there? It's an overlapping set issue! Newspapers don't always cover all sides to a story, but we don't know that "sometimes" includes important stories. Maybe they always make sure to cover all sides to important stories; they let the unimportant stories ("Cute Cat Picture on Internet Causes Lowere Productivity!") slide by.

Correct Answer:
(A)

Answer Choice Analysis:
(A) Bingo. This answer choice brings up the shift between missing sides of some stories and missing sides of important stories.

(B) Reversal. The argument treats multiple newspapers as necessary to address the issue, but it doesn't state that it is sufficient to solve the problem. If I think you should study for the Logic Games section, that doesn't mean I think it's sufficient to do well on the test!

(C) Out of scope. The argument is about what people should have access to, not what newspapers should do. In fact, the argument tries to overcome a deficiency in news coverage, not correct the coverage itself.

(D) Too extreme. The argument is about having access to multiple papers, not all papers.

(E) Two issues here (pun intended). First, the argument talks about both important stories and all stories - that's the flaw! Second, even if the argument was concerned only with important stories, that's not inherently a flaw. It would only be a flaw if the premises were about only important stories but the conclusion was about all stories.

Takeaway/Pattern:
If there's an intermediate conclusion, there's a chance the flaw in the argument relates to a gap between the premises and i. conclusion.

#officialexplanation

[layamaheshwari]

I got this question wrong on a timed PT and now realise what mistake I made. I'll try to run through the thought process -- feel free to chime in or comment upon my tactics.

Question type: Flaw in the reasoning

The narrow (even minute) scope of this argument affected me such that I glossed over it and missed out on crucial distinctions. Thus, I wasn't as discerning with the answer choices as I should have been. I believe one could make this a lot simpler if they thought of the abstract terms in terms of concrete examples.

The stimulus says that there are two sides to every story, and no newspaper adequately covers all sides of every story.

There's multiples sides to every NBA match report, and no newspaper adequately covers all sides to all of its NBA match reportage.

Stimulus also says that all sides of an important story should be covered, and therefore some important stories would not be adequately covered by one newspaper. So go out and buy two newspapers at least.

All sides of the US Presidential campaign must be covered, but going by the above some stories from the campaign will not be covered.

Hang on a minute. There was an important scope shift here. Sure newspapers might skimp on reportage of ALL stories in their pages, but maybe they reserve their best team, strictest editing, and a focus on balance for their important coverage? We don't know enough to make conclusions about how one newspaper would treat important stories, so hold off on that.

Answer choices:

[A] CORRECT. This points out the scope shift, and says we shouldn't lose hope for a newspaper's campaign coverage just because their NBA coverage isn't 100%.

[B] The wrong answer choice I selected. I'd love to hear someone else's take on why they rejected this. I believe that while the possibility this choice outlines is true (both newspapers could be owned by the same corporation), that's not what the argument's reasoning is touching upon.

[C] There was no jump from facts about newspapers to recommendations for newspapers. The recommendation was for us, the people. Eliminate.

[D] Not even close. Eliminate.

[E] Not true. The argument makes observations about all stories and then reaches a (mistaken) conclusion about important stories. Eliminate.

[atzhang6v6]

I still dont understand why A is corrrect. I thought EVERY includes IMPORTANT because its every...it will include important or unimportant stories, isnt it?? how does that mean it confuses EVERY and IMPORTANT??

[ningnengxu]

I picked b as well, i was trying to decide between A and B, as I always picked the wrong between the last 2 answer choices in the previous PTs, so i picked the 1 Im not 100% sure.

In some questions, b could be the right answer choices, but A is talking about the most obvious one, u just have to stick with what's in the stimuli.

[Jonathan.a.schw]

I believe it comes down to the idea that "Not all" of every story, has no bearing how much of that "Not all" includes the "important" ones. There could be three or four "important" stories out of a thousand. Those could be covered perfectly well, and that still allows their premise to hold (that not all newspapers can cover every side of every story). So it's a scope shift from "all" stories to "all important" stories. A hits that part.

B is wrong because the argument doesn't overlook it. It's possible that of all the newspapers out there, two have the same incomplete stories. The author just wants people to have access to MORE THAN ONE.

[YiZ98]

I am still a bit confused on why A is a better choice then B.

I think there are essentially two gaps in the argument:

1. The gap from P to IC

P: No newspaper can adequately cover all sides of every story
IC: Some important stories would not be adequately covered by one newspaper

This is apparently problematic. For instance, a teacher might not be able to adequetly cover all pages of every book that is assigned for a semester, but he can certainly cover some important books adequetly. Perhaps there are 1000 stories going on, but only one important.

2. The gap from IC to C

IC: Some important stories would not be adequately covered by one newspaper
C: Everyone should have access to more than one newspaper

Even if we accpet IC to be true, I don't think we can reach C. It seems possible that most, if not all, newspapers are limited in the same way. If thats the case, there's no point to read more than one newspaper -- you can only get the same "partial" information.


Choice (A) address the first gap while choice (B) addresses the second. Since I am usually more inclined to choose the answer chice that address the gap to the main conclusion, I went for (B).

Also, there seems to be a wording problem in choice (A). The first gap is from "the inability to cover all sides of every story", to "the inability to cover all sides of some important stories." But (A) changes the intermediate conclusion and present the gap as from "the inability to cover all sides of every story", to "the inability to cover all sides of any important story" -- which seems to me is a big jump.

Hope someone can help!