Logical reasoning PrepTest 143 · Section 4 · Question 15

Incorrect. The conclusion is about the Legislator's constituents, so they don't need to be representative of the country as a whole since the Legislator doesn't claim them to be.

Correct. Argument or Facts:
Argument

Valid or Flawed:
Flawed

Question Type:
Errors in Reasoning

Stimulus Summary:
Poll – 97+% of constituents don't favor high taxes.
Prediction – These constituents would support a bill to lower the corporate income tax rate.

Answer Anticipation:
The Legislator's argument is based on a poll, so we should start by considering a sampling flaw. The sample is of the constituents, and the conclusion is about them. There's no reason to believe that the sample is too small or unrepresentative, so a sampling flaw is unlikely to be the correct answer.

Moving past that consideration, let's look at the conclusion to see if anything pops out as being unsupported or problematic. It makes a prediction about beliefs—two common areas for flaws. However, the prediction isn't based on past trends, and the premise is about what the constituents believe, so there isn't a Gambler's Fallacy/past to present jump, or a jump between belief and fact.

When all else fails, look for any new terms in the conclusion! Here, the conclusion talks about the corporate income tax, while the premise talks about "high taxes." That's a shift, as there's no indication that the corporate tax rate is high. The Legislator's constituents might believe that the corporate tax rate is low and thus should be raised, while their taxes are high and should be lowered. Let's find an answer highlighting this term shift.

Answer Explanation:
This answer highlights the term shift between the poll and the legislation. The staff didn't ask about the corporate tax rate or the specific bill—they asked about high taxes. Of course everyone said they were against high taxes. However, there's no indication that they feel the corporate tax is high, so the Legislator's argument is flawed.

Key Takeaway:
Sometimes getting to the right flaw (and thus anticipation) is a journey that requires you go through a few considerations. That's not a problem as long as you're continuing to move forward and rule things out. As soon as you start spinning your wheels—thinking without getting closer to a correct answer, because you're not thinking through something or eliminating potential answers—it's time to head to the answers if you understand the stimulus or skip the question if you don't.

Incorrect. There isn't an absence of evidence here—there's a poll reflecting an opinion the constituents hold towards high taxes. Just because evidence for a conclusion is bad evidence of that conclusion doesn't mean that it's no evidence.

Incorrect. Since the conclusion is about a bill that is never previously discussed, it can't merely repeat a premise.

Incorrect. The poll doesn't prove the public supports the bill, as it was just of the Legislator's constituents (not the public in general) and it didn't ask about the bill. It's not even necessarily consistent with the public supporting the bill since we don't know that the corporate tax rate is high.