Logical reasoning PrepTest 131 · Section 3 · Question 8

Incorrect. First, that term is made up of common enough language and used in an understandable enough way that it doesn't need a specific definition. Second, scientific observations/predictions and understanding of mathematical concepts would definitely qualify. Third, that term isn't key to the argument.

Correct. Argument or Facts:
Argument

Valid or Flawed:
Flawed

Question Type:
Errors in Reasoning

Stimulus Summary:
Mayan religious scribes were good at math, so the Mayan people in general must have been good at math.

Answer Anticipation:
Stripped down, the flaw in this argument is a lot easier to see. It bases a conclusion about "the people in general" based on what was true of the religious scribes. There's no indication that the mathematical abilities of those scribes were in any way representative of the general public—maybe these scribes received special training in math as a part of their religious education. Any answer highlighting that this group is unrepresentative will reflect the flaw in this argument.

Answer Explanation:
This answer highlights that the sample in question—the religious scribes—is likely to be unrepresentative of the general public. We can select an answer saying that they're "likely" to be unrepresentative because this group was a member of the religious class and could read/write, which likely means they had a higher level of education than others at the time.

Key Takeaway:
As soon as we saw that the conclusion was about "the people in general," there was a good chance that the argument was going to base its conclusion on a subgroup of that population that could be unrepresentative. General conclusions are often based on a sample too small or too limited to be representative, or on too few examples to justify the general conclusion.

Incorrect. The argument never compares the accomplishments of the Mayans or claimed that they were more/most impressive, so this answer is out of scope.

Incorrect. There's no shift in the meaning of scientific. In fact, the argument only uses the term "scientific" once. The argument does jump from discussing science to math, but that's not a shift in the meaning of a term, but rather a shift from one concept/word to another.

Incorrect. There's no causality in this argument, so it can't feature a correlation/causation flaw.