Logical reasoning PrepTest 116 · Section 3 · Question 1

Correct. Argument or Facts:
Argument

Valid or Flawed:
Flawed

Question Type:
Strengthen with Necessary Premise

Stimulus Summary:
Without patents, people have no financial incentive to invent, so we should keep patents or no one will invent things.

Answer Anticipation:
This argument has three elements that can help us find the assumption—it talks about motivation, it makes a recommendation in the conclusion, and it includes very strong language in the conclusion.

The motivation here is the financial incentives that patents provide for invention. Because of this motivation, the author of the argument concludes that getting rid of patents will stop inventions.

Whenever an argument concludes a recommendation, it needs to establish the criteria by which that recommendation can be made. Here, that criteria is established—more inventions are good, and so something that promotes it is also good. However, the argument goes a step beyond that—it's not just that financial incentives promote inventions, but that if they're gone, no one will invent anything!

That's a step too far—there's no indication that people invent things only because of the financial incentives. If a single person invented something just for the intellectual rewards of doing so, this conclusion would be invalidated.

Therefore, an assumption necessary for a conclusion that no one would invent anything without the financial incentives is that that is the only incentive that gets people to invent things in the first place.

Answer Explanation:
This answer matches our anticipation perfectly and aligns with what is required for the argument to work. If there are non—financial rewards to inventing, then people very well may continue to invent even if those financial rewards (via patents) disappear, invalidating the conclusion.

Key Takeaway:
When a conclusion is very strong, that strength is usually related to an assumption of the argument. Check to make sure that any strong language is matched (or exceeded) in the premises.

Incorrect. How the profit is allocated in a situation where a patent is sold is not relevant to whether it motivated an invention in the first place, especially when the focus is on the manufacturer's profit and not the inventor's.

Incorrect. While the argument does rely on financial incentives motivating invention, the up—front investment to create the new invention doesn't need to be insignificant compared to the profits—just not high enough to eat up all the financial benefits. If that investment is 10% of the earning potential, that's not insignificant, but most people would be happy with that ratio of investment to money made.

Incorrect. The rules governing the granting of patents is out of scope of an argument about whether they're the only thing that can spur invention. This answer would be more relevant in an argument about the best way to motivate invention using a patent system.

Incorrect. Similar to (D), the specifics of the patent system are out of scope here, as long as they meet the minimum threshold of allowing someone to financially benefit from their invention.