#6 - Oscar: I have been accused of plagiarizing the work of

[Administrator]

Complete Question Explanation

Method of Reasoning. 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!

[Anothertesttaker]

I narrowed my answer choices down to A and C. I went with C because it seems like Millie is challenging Oscar. Is this wrong because Millie is challenging that Myers cannot give permission to plagiarize and not challenging Oscar's ability to quote Myer's like the answer choice says?

[Jay Donnell]

Hi Anothertesttaker!

Millie is indeed challenging Oscar, but not in the way represented in C. I would agree with your reasoning against C, good catch!

Millie doesn't question whether or not Oscar could prove that he received private correspondence from Myers regarding the use of her work without attribution. Rather, she challenges the idea that such permission absolves Oscar from claims of plagiarism.
It seems that according to Millie, the use of another's work without attribution is still plagiarism, in that "it is fundamentally a type of lie."

Hope that helps, keep up the good work!

[SwanQueen]

Hello,

Can someone please explain why (A) is correct and why (E) is incorrect?

For (E), I thought that by way of arguing that plagiarism is "misleading readers", Millie's argument ultimately "demonstrates [Oscar's] lack of credibility."

Thank you in advance!

[Jeremy Press]

Hi SwanQueen,

Try to be quite literal (and demanding) of the "match" between the description given in Method answer choices and the explicit discussion in the stimulus argument. Does Millie argue specifically about (or even mention) Oscar's "credibility"? Not that I can see explicitly. That's already a very good reason to reject answer choice E. Your analysis suggests that Millie implies Oscar is not credible (because he's been accused of a technique that Millie calls misleading). But answer choice E isn't talking about what Millie "implies," it's talking about what she "shows." And without any explicit reference to Oscar's credibility, we just can't get to that "showing." Another good reason (literal reason) to reject answer choice E is that Millie nowhere refers to Oscar's "admission" (that he used passages without attribution). Occasionally you might see a Method question answer choice that refers to an implication from something explicitly stated in the argument. But I've never seen a Method answer that referred to a "showing" of two things, both of which have to be read as implications of the argument. Keep it simple: Millie doesn't explicitly discuss Oscar's admission, and she doesn't explicitly mention his credibility. That knocks E out of contention.

Answer choice A is correct because it's a provably accurate description of what Millie does in her argument: she analyzes plagiarism as more than just something that is done without permission. She analyzes plagiarism as a form of lying to a reader. This analysis does undermine Oscar's position, because it suggests what he did would be plagiarism even if he got permission.

I hope this helps!

Jeremy

[SwanQueen]

Yes, this helps indeed. Thank you for the quick reply