#23 - YXK is currently the television network with the

[Administrator]

Please post below with any questions!

[eronquillo12]

Hi- can you please explain why A is correct? I chose C. I don't quite think I understand the exact reasoning of the argument, and therefore, I had a hard time picking one is similar to it.

[James Finch]

Hi eronquillo,

This is a Parallel Flaw question, which means that identifying the flaw in the stimulus is critical to identifying the correct answer. Here we have an unwarranted assumption made about a member of a group (YXK shows) based upon a characteristic of that group in aggregate: because YXK has the highest overall ratings, its highest-rated show must therefore be the highest-rated show on television. The problem lies in the possibility that YXK could have many shows with relatively high ratings, giving the network the highest aggregate ratings, but another network could have one show with exceptionally high ratings combined with low ratings for the rest of its shows, leaving it with lower aggregate ratings. Formally, this is known as an error of division.

The next step, after correctly identifying the flaw, is to then identify the answer that parallels that flaw. This can make these questions a time sink, and potentially worth skipping and going back to if running low on time in a section. Thankfully here, answer choice (A) does the trick:

Soccer players suffer more leg injuries on average than other athletes, and Linda has suffered the most leg injuries, so she must have suffered the most leg injuries.

Just like in the stimulus, an unwarranted assumption is made that just because the average is higher for a certain group, then the member of that group with the most must be the individual with the most out of all groups. In this case, we could imagine that Linda has suffered two leg injuries, all the other soccer players have suffered one, but a football player has suffered three, despite no other football players having leg injuries. It is an exact parallel of the logic in the stimulus.

Answer choice (C) is incorrect because it does not contain flawed logic. By explicitly stating that one auto company's three top-selling models are the three top-selling models in the country, then that company's top-selling model would in fact be the top-selling model in the country as well.

Hope this clears things up!

[avengingangel]

Can you please explain why C is incorrect? It seems to me to parallel exactly as the stimulus, except that it says the company manufactures the 3 best selling cars in the country, versus the company having overall the best selling cars, which would make it an exact parallel.

Except, I still think it's superior or at least equal to A, because A does not indicate that Linda is a soccer player. The stimulus clearly notes that Bliss is "among YXK's programs." A would be correct if the stimulus did not include that caveat. Therefore, how would one decide the "imperfection" in C is not as bad as the imperfection A in order to choose A as the correct answer?? The question stem says to choose the "most similar" reasoning -- A and C seem pretty on-par with being most similar.

And P.S. the explanation above uses "highest ratings," when the stimulus actually is about the highest viewers, FYI.

[Adam Tyson]

James' explanation says everything you need to know about answer C, Angel. The argument in our stimulus is flawed, while the argument in answer C is valid. You can never parallel a flawed argument with a valid argument! No matter how similar the type of reasoning, a bad argument will only ever be paired with another bad argument containing the same flaw.

As James explained, the stimulus contains an error of division, or what we sometimes call a whole to part flaw. Just because a group has a certain characteristic does not prove that an individual within that group has that characteristic. Answer choice A isn't a perfect parallel for the stimulus because the stimulus has a flaw about total numbers while answer A is about averages, but that's still the only answer with the error of division. Never allow the perfect to be the enemy of the good, as they say!

Linda definitely has to be a soccer player, because that answer used the word "other" in referring to her. If she was not a soccer player then the word "other" would not have been included.

Also, as an aside, the term "ratings," when referring to television programs, does in fact refer to the number of viewers. The highest rated show is the one watched by the most people.

I hope that helps. Remember, never parallel a flawed argument with a valid argument!

[momgoingbacktoschool]

James' explanation says everything you need to know about answer C, Angel. The argument in our stimulus is flawed, while the argument in answer C is valid. You can never parallel a flawed argument with a valid argument! No matter how similar the type of reasoning, a bad argument will only ever be paired with another bad argument containing the same flaw.

As James explained, the stimulus contains an error of division, or what we sometimes call a whole to part flaw. Just because a group has a certain characteristic does not prove that an individual within that group has that characteristic. Answer choice A isn't a perfect parallel for the stimulus because the stimulus has a flaw about total numbers while answer A is about averages, but that's still the only answer with the error of division. Never allow the perfect to be the enemy of the good, as they say!

Linda definitely has to be a soccer player, because that answer used the word "other" in referring to her. If she was not a soccer player then the word "other" would not have been included.

Also, as an aside, the term "ratings," when referring to television programs, does in fact refer to the number of viewers. The highest rated show is the one watched by the most people.

I hope that helps. Remember, never parallel a flawed argument with a valid argument!

I'm still stuck on the question of how do we know Linda is a soccer player? Or is the error in division coming from people with leg injuries? So "leg injuries" would be "YXK" vs "soccer players" being "YXK"? I also immediately marked A as a loser because it mentions "on average" in the first premise where as the premises and conclusion in the stimulus are very conclusive. Can you help me understand how you can reconcile that? Or am I wrong and the powerfulness of the wording is actually similar?

Also, you mention that this is the only answer with an error of division... What errors are present in the other answers, then?

Thank you!

[Jeremy Press]

Hi mom,

The first is a great question, and it's very subtly wrapped into the language of that sentence, specifically the word "other," which assumes that she's part of the same category. "Other" needs a point of comparison, and without assuming that Linda is a soccer player, it has no role in the sentence ("other" than whom? other than Linda). If Linda weren't a soccer player, the sentence would read, "Linda Wilson has suffered more leg injuries than any soccer player at this university." The error in division is coming from relying on what we know of the soccer team (as a whole) to make a conclusion about one of its players (Linda, a part).

As Adam mentioned, sometimes some of these "strength" details can vary a bit in a premise (or even a conclusion!) on a Parallel Flaw question, so long as we have the right flaw, in this case the error of division. But I will point out that, just like the stimulus, the first premise of answer choice A is making a superlative claim (saying that something is at the top of a list). In the stimulus the superlative is about numbers (YXK has the greatest number of viewers). In answer choice A the superlative is about an average (soccer as a sport has the highest rate of leg injuries). That similarity helps tie the arguments more closely together, but ultimately it's about the specific flaw.

Answer choice B is a basic evidence error (we don't know that Janna is a part of the school, and we're thus not going from a claim about the school as a whole to a claim about one of the teachers at that school in the conclusion, so there's no division error).

Answer choice D is a quantitative error. We cannot infer an average from individual data points.

Answer choice E is the opposite quantitative error from answer choice D. We cannot infer information about an individual data point from an average ("typically").

I hope this helps!