#20 - We should accept the proposal to demolish the old

[KwakuS]

Hello all,

Thank you for the responses so far. I was a little confused as to how this is a strictly ad hominem attack. I think that would make perfect sense to me if the last sentence was left out. Then the author would have only said to demolish the train station because of the views of the people in the historical society. But the last sentence about economic health actually sounded like a well-reasoned argument to me. There is always of course another side, but that seemed to imply that this was more than just an ad hominem attack. How could I have approached this question to know that I was only dealing with an ad hominem attack and not a well-reasoned argument?

Thanks,
Kwaku

[atierney]

Good question! The important point is to be able to identify that you need to identify a flaw in the argument for the purposes of the question, which is a parallel flaw type question.

To be honest, I would agree with your assessment of the last sentence; however, it's important to recognize, by stating this, it naturally follows that the last sentence in no way contributes to a flaw in the argument itself. Therefore, when we read the question stem, and are asked to identify a flaw (this being a parallel flaw argument), then we can be assured that the last sentence if irrelevant for the purposes of identifying a flaw. Since, the only other material in this question is the ad hominem attack, we can be confident that the flaw is ad hominem and that this will need to be present in the answer choice.

Let me know if you have any questions on this.