#18 - Teacher: Journalists who conceal the identity of the

[Administrator]

Complete Question Explanation

Strenthen. The correct answer choice is (A).

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

Answer choice (B):

Answer choice (C):

Answer choice (D):

Answer choice (E):

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

[akanshachandra]

Hello, I'm talking about the strengthen version of this question. I don't really understand why the answer is A, 'a journalist undermines his or her own professional standing by submitting for publication statements that, not being attributed to a named source, are rejected for being implausible...etc.'

When I searched this up on another site, they gave many diagrams. I guess another question of mine is how we're supposed to know when to diagram when we have under 2 minutes to read, understand each question, figure out which type of question it is, along with reading all the answer choices and understanding them. I try not to diagram when the question doesn't seem to call for it, but sometimes answers are explained by people through diagrams only. When do we take the risk to diagram?

[Adam Tyson]

Hey there, akanshachandra, I feel your pain! Diagramming is usually time-consuming, and as the clock ticks louder and louder and the urge to rush mounts it can seem like a terrible dilemma to think you might have to start drawing out conditional diagrams in order to answer one more question.

A few points about that generally before I get to the specific question here. First, while diagramming can indeed be a bit slow at times, it is often the case that the payoff, in the form of easily, confidently, and quickly selecting the right answer because the diagram makes it all but impossible to miss, is worth it. While I don't diagram often, when I see a complex conditional argument in the stimulus I am more than happy to take a moment to draw it out. Once I have done so, finding the right answer is like doing a child's connect-the-dots puzzle. It's worth it!

That said, if I am getting close to the end of a section and I am concerned about running out of time, I may choose not to diagram a question, but to either look for a shortcut or else skip that question and come back to it later if time allows.

Don't let that "under two minutes per question" thing rule your world. In order to answer every question you need to average about 1.5 minutes per question, but that is just an average. Some questions you will knock out in under a minute, others may take closer to 3. The goal is not to hurry up and answer more questions, but to get more right answers. If taking a few extra seconds to draw a quick diagram will guarantee a right answer, why not take that time to do it right? Don't sink 5 minutes into a diagram, but don't be afraid to invest a little extra time, compared to an easier question, on getting another right answer on your score sheet. If I have a choice between answering 25 questions and getting 15 of them right, or answering 18 questions and getting them all right, I will choose the latter every. single. time. Invest, and reap your dividends!

Finally, I reserve my diagramming for questions that contain clear conditional reasoning, that have more than two conditions involved (because I can handle just two conditions in my head, and so can you with practice), and for which diagrams seem like a useful tool based on the question stem. A Must Be True question with conditional reasoning is a good candidate, as is a Justify the Conclusion question or a Cannot Be True question. So would a Parallel Reasoning or certain Assumption questions.

In this case, with a Strengthen question stem, and with the conditional reasoning being somewhat subtle ("Journalists who..." is a variation on "people who...", so we could certainly create a diagram if we wanted), I don't see much value in diagramming. Instead, I will use my standard Strengthen strategy - identify the conclusion and make it more likely to be true.

Here, the first sentence is the conclusion - the journalists who conceal are staking their reps on anecdotes. That concept of "reputation" is a new element in the conclusion, not mentioned elsewhere in the argument, so I know my correct answer has to talk about how those anecdotes are tied to reputation. The premises talk about the elements of anecdotes - plausible, original, and interesting. So I want to link those concepts to reputation, like this:

Reputation depends on/is affected by plausibility, originality, and interest level of a claim.

With that prephrase in mind, and with no diagram at all, I head into my answers and start sorting losers and contenders.

A looks good - it talks about what I need to talk about

B is a loser - no connection to reputation

C looks odd - it talks about rep indirectly, and mentions two of my three criteria, but one criterion is positive and the other negative. I don't like it, but I might keep it for now

D is a loser - no mention of the criteria of plausibility, originality, and interest level

E is a loser - no mention of any of my crucially needed elements (only something that might be somewhat connected to reputation)

I have it down to A and C, and A looks right on the money to me. I pick it and move on. Winner!

Diagram when it is clearly called for, and you'll get better at recognizing when that is and is not the case with more practice and familiarity with the material. When it isn't called for, don't force it, but try a different approach instead.

I hope that helped. Good luck, keep pounding!

[akanshachandra]

Thank you so much for your detailed answer!

[whardy21]

I found this problem very difficult. I wasn't able to really track the conclusion in this argument. I believe had I tracked the conclusion this would have been easier to do. I chose B as my answer choice. That said, can you explain why A is correct and why B is incorrect? Thanks.

[Zach Foreman]

I think Adam gave a great explanation (although he first gave excellent detailed advice on diagramming with which I agree 100%).

Here, the first sentence is the conclusion - the journalists who conceal are staking their reps on anecdotes. That concept of "reputation" is a new element in the conclusion, not mentioned elsewhere in the argument, so I know my correct answer has to talk about how those anecdotes are tied to reputation. The premises talk about the elements of anecdotes - plausible, original, and interesting. So I want to link those concepts to reputation, like this:

Reputation depends on/is affected by plausibility, originality, and interest level of a claim.

With that prephrase in mind, and with no diagram at all, I head into my answers and start sorting losers and contenders.

A looks good - it talks about what I need to talk about

B is a loser - no connection to reputation

The conclusion talks about reputation, which needs to be supported because that concept doesn't appear in the premise. So we need an answer that talks about reputation. A does the job.

[yupyup]

Hi! Even after reading the explanation, I'm still not really understanding this. I suppose I get how Adam eliminated answer choices to get A. But I'm still having a hard time grasping the actual meaning of what is being said in the stimulus and correct answer choice. Could someone please break it down in simple terms? And also, I know Adam said he wouldn't diagram this, but could someone please explain this with diagrams? Maybe it would make more sense to me then. Thanks!!

[James Finch]

Hi Yupyup,

The first step to correctly answering this question is identifying the teacher's conclusion, since that's what we need to strengthen/make more likely. The conclusion here is that journalists that rely on unnamed sources stake their professional reputations on the logic of anecdotes. OK, so how well do the premises support this claim? We're given that these quotes are dissociated from their context, which in turn means that being accepted for publication requires the satisfaction of at least one of three conditions: high plausibility, originality or interest to an audience.

So what's the issue? The premises don't explain why journalists are staking their professional reputations on quoting unnamed sources, so that's a clear logical gap we need to fill. This is similar to a Justify question, but without necessarily proving the conclusion true, just making it more likely. So what we need to do is Prephrase what will bridge the logical gap and then look for an answer choice that does that. Mine would be something along the lines of:

"Having a story be rejected for publication because its quotes are implausible, unoriginal and uninteresting harms that journalist's professional reputation." This neatly ties the contrapositive of the conditional premise to the conclusion.

(A) gives us almost exactly that Prephrase, making it the correct answer choice.

Hope this clears things up!

[chsuzman]

This problem made me think of a general question about stimuli with multiple perspectives presented.

If the question stem only mentions one of the perspectives, can you ignore the other perspective when selecting an answer choice? In other words, the stem here asks what would strengthen the teacher's argument––does that mean I can ignore the student's argument from there on out?

I ask this because I think getting too caught up in the relationship between the two arguments caused me to get this question wrong. Thank you!

[evelineliu]

Hi there,

For this question, you can ignore the student's argument since the stem asks about how to strengthen the teacher's argument.

Best,
Eveline