Logical reasoning PrepTest 126 · Section 4 · Question 12

Incorrect. The Politician brings up a list of specific goods that don't conform to the Economists's claim, focusing on their argument rather than their character. Claiming they clearly have not shopped anywhere recently" is the closest it gets to calling their character into question, but even that's a stretch, and an argument that attacks a person and their argument generally won't be seen as committing an ad hominem flaw.

Incorrect. One doesn't need to show that an expert lacks expertise in a given area to show that they're wrong in drawing a conclusion on that subject, so this answer doesn't even describe a flaw.

Incorrect. This answer describes an absence of evidence flaw. It would be present if the Politician limited her remarks to pointing out a flaw in the argument of the Economists, but she instead brings up information that she claims rebuts their statements, so this flaw isn't present.

Correct. Argument or Facts:
Argument

Valid or Flawed:
Flawed

Question Type:
Errors in Reasoning

Stimulus Summary:
Economists — Consumer price increases have averaged less than 3% this past year

Politician — 5 things (including auto insurance) have gone up by more than 10%, so the economists are wrong.

Answer Anticipation:
The Economists make a statement about the average" increase to consumer prices. To rebut this, the Politician brings up 5 specific things that have seen an increase of more than 3%—including her auto insurance.

A list of 5 items isn't nearly enough to rebut a statement about consumer prices generally. There are hundreds of items that go into that calculation, so we'd need a lot more than 5 items, or a note that these 5 items are representative, to rebut a conclusion about an average of all these items. Additionally, the Politician includes her car insurance ("my auto insurance") in the list—not even the average of all car insurance costs. Her car insurance could have gone up way more than the average for some reason.

Let's find an answer stating that the Politician's sample is small and not necessarily representative.

Answer Explanation:
5 items is too small a sample to rebut a claim about the average of hundreds of products. Additionally, in discussing her auto insurance, she very much raised the possibility that her list is unrepresentative on top of the small sample size already suggesting that possibility.

Key Takeaway:
Whenever a specific example or set of examples is used in a rebuttal, make sure that the scope of that list is enough to form a rebuttal. If the rebuttal is attempting to disprove a strong generalization ("All X are Y"), then a single element is enough to serve as a counterexample. If, however, as we saw here, the rebuttal is rebutting what is true of the "average, then significantly more or representative examples will be needed.

Incorrect. Unless you get emotional about a 12% increase in the cost of a newspaper, the Politician isn't making an emotional appeal.