#13 - Yolanda: Gaining access to computers without

[Administrator]

Complete Question Explanation

Point at Issue. The correct answer choice is (D)

Both speakers would agree to the statement in answer choice (A), so it is incorrect. Answer choice (B) is incorrect because we do not know Arjun's opinion on the private property issue. Whether or not he considers hospital data to be private property cannot be ascertained from his statement. (C) is an interesting answer choice, but it misses the issue. The debate is not about whether physical property damage is more criminal than intellectual property damage. Rather, Arjun attempts to show that manipulating computer data can also physically harm people.

[mariahenain]

Could you explain how to use the Agree/Disagree test on this question? I'm having trouble finding where Arjun references joyriding and that's why I eliminated D.

Thank you!

[AthenaDalton]

Hi Maria,

Great question!

You're right that Arjun doesn't explicitly mention joyriding. However, he does directly counter Yolanda's statement that hacking isn't "as dangerous" as joyriding because it doesn't pose a risk of physical harm to people. Arjun believes that hacking can cause physical harm to people -- just like the crime of joyriding.

Here's how I paraphrase their argument:

Yolanda: Joyriding is more dangerous than hacking into computers because joyriding (and not hacking) physically endangers people.

Arjun: I disagree! Hacking into a hospital could damage systems that human lives depend on, causing physical harm to people. Therefore, hacking can be more dangerous than joyriding.

Even though Arjun doesn't explicitly refer to joyriding, he does offer a counter-example to Yolanda's joyriding hypothetical which shows that a hospital hack can be just as dangerous as joyriding.

I hope that makes sense. Good luck studying!

Athena Dalton

[deck1134]

Hi PowerScore Staff,

I'll admit that this question tripped me up--a lot.

It has been my experience that the correct answer in a Point at Issue question must be something that is referenced in both parts of the stimuli. In fact, more often than not, answer choices that assume that one stimuli reference a topic stated in the other part of the stimulus are some of the most convincing wrong answers.

Keeping with that past pattern, I eliminated all answers dealing with joyriding, largely because Arjun NEVER talks about it. Sure, he disagrees with Yolanda, but he disagrees with the conclusion--namely that one is more dangerous than the other. He never talks about Joyriding. How, then, can we come to answer choice D? I choose C, thinking that he does not claim it to be more dangerous, just as dangerous.

Secondarily, isn't it possible that he thinks it is dangerous, but perhaps less dangerous than intellectual property? Answer C holds that they disagree over whether damage to physical property is more criminal. Isn't that true? Yoland states that, and then Arjun ardently disagrees! My prephrase was something like: "Computre Crimes could be as dangerous as physical crimes, or maybe more." Why does it have to be more dangerous as opposed to as dangerous?

I really struggled with this question because of the first point--that the topic is never actual addressed in Arjun's point. Could you provide any advice on that specifically, in addition to an explanation of the answer? That always (at least I though) leads to a wrong answer. Help!

[Adam Tyson]

While it's true that we need to draw our prephrase from the facts in the stimulus and not from any outside assumptions, deck, that's not so harsh a standard as being limited only to whether a specific word, phrase, or concept was explicitly mentioned by both speakers. In this case, that standard is too harsh.

Yolanda argued that joyriding is more dangerous because of the different kinds of damage potentially caused. Arjun explicitly disagreed, which means he would say that joyriding is NOT more dangerous. He didn't have to say "I disagree that joyriding is more dangerous because of the different types of harms", because his simple "I disagree" covers that.

What would either of these people say about whether one or the other is "more criminal"? I don't know. I don't even know what "more criminal" means. It's against more laws? Against more important laws? Subject to higher penalties? They agree that both things are crimes. They disagree about whether the different types of harms make one more dangerous than the other. That's all I can really get from this, and that makes D the better answer. Yolanda would say yes, and Arjun would say no.

Don't read this too narrowly, and presume that Arjun is only disagreeing with Yolanda's premise about computer crime only harming intellectual property without that impacting his position on the joyriding issue. His "I disagree" is almost certainly aimed at the bigger picture - Yolanda's conclusion. If it wasn't, and he was prepared to agree with her conclusion but not her premise, then none of these answers would be any good, and since we need to interpret the argument in a way that allows us to pick the best answer, we have to adjust that interpretation so as to allow for there to be one answer that is better than the others!

[mollylynch]

Can someone explain how C misses the issue?

[Jeff Wren]

Hi Molly,

Answer C states, "whether damage to physical property is more criminal than damage to intellectual property."

The argument that Yolanda and Arjun are having is about how dangerous joyriding is compared to computer crimes, not how criminal these activities are.

These concepts are not the same and may even be completely unrelated. For example, skydiving may be more dangerous than shoplifting, but skydiving is generally not a criminal activity while shoplifting is.

In this argument, there is no discussion about how serious a crime each activity is from a legal/criminal/moral standpoint, just about how physically dangerous each activity is.

[cd1010]

While it's true that we need to draw our prephrase from the facts in the stimulus and not from any outside assumptions, deck, that's not so harsh a standard as being limited only to whether a specific word, phrase, or concept was explicitly mentioned by both speakers. In this case, that standard is too harsh.

Yolanda argued that joyriding is more dangerous because of the different kinds of damage potentially caused. Arjun explicitly disagreed, which means he would say that joyriding is NOT more dangerous. He didn't have to say "I disagree that joyriding is more dangerous because of the different types of harms", because his simple "I disagree" covers that.

What would either of these people say about whether one or the other is "more criminal"? I don't know. I don't even know what "more criminal" means. It's against more laws? Against more important laws? Subject to higher penalties? They agree that both things are crimes. They disagree about whether the different types of harms make one more dangerous than the other. That's all I can really get from this, and that makes D the better answer. Yolanda would say yes, and Arjun would say no.

Don't read this too narrowly, and presume that Arjun is only disagreeing with Yolanda's premise about computer crime only harming intellectual property without that impacting his position on the joyriding issue. His "I disagree" is almost certainly aimed at the bigger picture - Yolanda's conclusion. If it wasn't, and he was prepared to agree with her conclusion but not her premise, then none of these answers would be any good, and since we need to interpret the argument in a way that allows us to pick the best answer, we have to adjust that interpretation so as to allow for there to be one answer that is better than the others!

Is it fair to interpret this as a discussion about the use of the fact test? In applying the agree/disagree test, we need to find evidence from the stimulus that the person would agree. So, in some ways, the task here is similar to Most Strongly supported where we are identifying evidence in the stimulus that a statement is supported. In this case, we can infer that Arjun would agree with this statement in D "whether the unauthorized use of computers is as dangerous to people as joyriding", because he says "computer crimes also cause physical harm to people." So he's saying that Yolanda's criteria of physical danger (joyriding as more dangerous because it physically endangers people) then also applies to unauthorized access to computers.

Just wanted to check my understanding of the standard for the Agree/Disagree test! Thank you.

[Dana D]

Hey CD,

Exactly right - Arjun states "I disagree!" in response to Yolanda's claim that joyriding is the more dangerous crime because it physically endangers people, and computer crimes do not.