#2 - Columnist: An information design expert has argued that

[Beth Hayden]

Hi Bluebell,

Hmm, I'm not sure if I'm understanding your question correctly so please let me know if I miss the mark!

Answer choice A says that the conclusion is based on multiple claims that, themselves, are inconsistent with one another. So for answer choice A to be correct, you need to be able to find two claims that are made in the stimulus and identify something that makes them inconsistent with each other.

Any part of GIAPS might be buggy or just plain bad, making it difficult to create an effective presentation--it doesn't necessarily matter whether the auto representation wizard or some other feature is to blame. If you are trying to put together a powerpoint and the software just won't work and constantly malfunctions, that's going to make it hard to create a good presentation even if you use the tool properly. That is the flaw in this argument that D articulates.

If you're still unsure why A is wrong, let us know what the two claims are that you think are inconsistent and we can elaborate further.

Hope that helps!
Beth

[bluebell]

The two claims that appear inconsistent to me is that it first says “GIAPS, with its autopresentation wizard.” But then it says that “it cannot be responsible for bad presentations.” It seems to me that if the autopresentation wizard is used then it could lead to ineffective presentation and the tool would bear at least part of the responsibility for a bad presentation.

[Rachael Wilkenfeld]

Hi bluebell,

The way the stimulus is using "responsible" here is causal. The term is being used to show which of two potential parties is responsible in a situation. It doesn't allow for partial responsibility. Due to the structure of the claim, either the user is responsible or the software must be responsible. The phrase "autopresentation" doesn't mean zero input from the user. It's an autopresentation wizard, which indicates that it's more of a guide than a completely automatic program.

When I read this stimulus, I thought immediately of the high profile cases of Tesla car crashes. In these crashes, the user was using the autopilot feature, but the user was still responsible for the crash, Automatic doesn't mean without any user interaction. So it's not inconsistent to say something is an "autopresentation" and still have that product require user interaction.

Hope that helps!

[Dancingbambarina]

Hi PowerFam,

Your explanation of Q 2's Answer Choice B leads me to think that you can infer a conditional statement from every causal relationship. Is this true? Thank you.

Answer choice (B): The author does not assume that effective presentations are good presentations, only that ineffective presentations are bad presentations. This answer choice is a Mistaken Negation of an implicit assumption, which is not even central to the logic of this argument.

[Adam Tyson]

Not every causal relationship has an underlying conditional relationship, Dancingbambarina, but strong causal claims do assume that IF the cause occurs, THEN the effect must also occur. They also assume that IF the cause does NOT occur, THEN the effect also does not occur. In other words, those strong causal claims have built in biconditional statements.

But some causal claims are softer. For example, "uncertainty about the outcome of a major election is one factor in declining values in publicly traded stocks." This is not saying that if there is uncertainty, there must be declining stock values. It just means that such uncertainty is one of the causal factors to be considered. Conditional claims are absolute; soft causal claims are not, so they don't carry with them an underlying conditional claim.

Some soft causal indicators include:

is a factor
plays a role in
contributes to