#13 - Using rational argument in advertisements does not persuade people to buy the products being

[Administrator]

Complete Question Explanation

Parallel Flaw. The correct answer choice is (E).

Answer choice (A):

Answer choice (B):

Answer choice (C):

Answer choice (D):

Answer choice (E): This is the correct answer choice.

This explanation is still in progress. Please post any questions below!

[alex.r.berson@gmail.com]

Hi there,

I chose (D) because it has a persuasion/causal element can you please explain why (D) is wrong and (E) is right?

[Luke Haqq]

Hi Alex!

This stimulus, stated in more abstract terms, effectively starts by saying, doing A (rational arguments) results in X (people not buying products). It then concludes that doing the opposite of A (non-rational appeals to emotion) will result in the opposite of X (buying advertised products).

Answer choice (E) parallels this flawed reasoning. It starts by saying doing A (reading poorly written directions) results in X (people not learning to program). It then concludes that doing the opposite of A (reading well-written directions) will result in the opposite of X (they'll learn to program). It's possible that people could read well-written instructions and still not learn how to program a computer.

Answer choice (D) doesn't quite parallel this structure of reasoning. Most notably, look at the conclusion of (D). The conclusions in the stimulus and in (E) are stated in absolute terms, whereas (D) uses the comparative language of betterness ("the better the letters of reference a person has, the better the job that person will get").