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- Wed Mar 30, 2016 6:45 pm
#22667
Question #7: Flaw. The correct answer choice is (B)
This employee takes a fairly hardline position in the stimulus’ final sentence: “my boss is incorrect.” So let’s examine what the boss suggests, and why the employee feels that’s an unreasonable request.
The boss responds to the employee’s presentation by stating that it should have included more detail about profit projections, a seemingly reasonable reprimand considering the audience was an accounting team. The employee, however, disagrees with this suggestion on the notion that people’s attention tends to wander when they are given “too much detail.”
Well what’s wrong with the employee’s reaction?
Perhaps you spotted it on your first reading: there’s a potentially large gap between including more detail and presenting too much detail! In other words “more” isn’t necessarily the same thing as “too much,” and presuming they’re equivalent is the employee’s mistake. Expect an answer then that describes that mistaken equivalence.
Answer choice (A): does not describe the facts of the argument, as the employee suggests or takes for granted that the boss’s opinions of presentations tend to be inaccurate. This would sound something like, “yeah, but the boss is usually wrong about these sorts of things.”
Answer choice (B): This is the correct answer choice. As expected, the correct answer points out the confusion between more of something (details) and too much of it.
If you noticed this mistake in the stimulus this answer should have been immediately obvious. If not, you can still confirm that (B) is a reasonable response by cross-referencing it with the information supplied: does the employee in fact fail to make that distinction, and if so is it an issue? The answer to both is of course “yes” so this answer remains appealing.
Answer choice (C): is perhaps true—the employee doesn’t mention other distractions besides too much detail, so it’s entirely possible those reasons might not have been considered—but it in no way describes an error of reasoning. The employee’s argument is based solely on the idea of too much detail, so considering other audience issues is irrelevant.
Answer choice (D): describes an overgeneralization error, which does not occur in this argument (the employee never attempts to show that a single instance proves a larger truth or outcome).
Answer choice (E): Like (D), this is a categorically-familiar error, in this case known as the Uncertain Use of a Term/Concept, that is not present in the stimulus—there is no secondary usage of the word “detail” where the definition of that word has been meaningfully altered.
This employee takes a fairly hardline position in the stimulus’ final sentence: “my boss is incorrect.” So let’s examine what the boss suggests, and why the employee feels that’s an unreasonable request.
The boss responds to the employee’s presentation by stating that it should have included more detail about profit projections, a seemingly reasonable reprimand considering the audience was an accounting team. The employee, however, disagrees with this suggestion on the notion that people’s attention tends to wander when they are given “too much detail.”
Well what’s wrong with the employee’s reaction?
Perhaps you spotted it on your first reading: there’s a potentially large gap between including more detail and presenting too much detail! In other words “more” isn’t necessarily the same thing as “too much,” and presuming they’re equivalent is the employee’s mistake. Expect an answer then that describes that mistaken equivalence.
Answer choice (A): does not describe the facts of the argument, as the employee suggests or takes for granted that the boss’s opinions of presentations tend to be inaccurate. This would sound something like, “yeah, but the boss is usually wrong about these sorts of things.”
Answer choice (B): This is the correct answer choice. As expected, the correct answer points out the confusion between more of something (details) and too much of it.
If you noticed this mistake in the stimulus this answer should have been immediately obvious. If not, you can still confirm that (B) is a reasonable response by cross-referencing it with the information supplied: does the employee in fact fail to make that distinction, and if so is it an issue? The answer to both is of course “yes” so this answer remains appealing.
Answer choice (C): is perhaps true—the employee doesn’t mention other distractions besides too much detail, so it’s entirely possible those reasons might not have been considered—but it in no way describes an error of reasoning. The employee’s argument is based solely on the idea of too much detail, so considering other audience issues is irrelevant.
Answer choice (D): describes an overgeneralization error, which does not occur in this argument (the employee never attempts to show that a single instance proves a larger truth or outcome).
Answer choice (E): Like (D), this is a categorically-familiar error, in this case known as the Uncertain Use of a Term/Concept, that is not present in the stimulus—there is no secondary usage of the word “detail” where the definition of that word has been meaningfully altered.