PrepTest 144

Correct. Argument or Facts:
Argument

Valid or Flawed:
Flawed

Question Type:
Strengthen with Sufficient Premise

Stimulus Summary:
Background - A tax prep company includes a liability disclaimer in every email
Only purpose - Provide legal protection
Email suggests client act illegally → not Provide legal protection
Therefore: The disclaimer serves no purpose

Answer Anticipation:
That's a pretty strong conclusion—the disclaimer can serve "no" purpose. Generally, when that's the case, we should start to think about other potential purposes other than those raised in the stimulus.

However, here, we can't do that! There's a premise establishing that the only purpose of the disclaimer is to provide legal protection—if it doesn't do that, then it does in fact serve no purpose.

So now it's a question of whether the argument establishes that the disclaimer doesn't provide legal protection (hint: the question is asking us to strengthen the argument, so it must fail to do so). The situation described in the premise after the pivot ("But") does establish that the disclaimer fails to provide legal protection . . . in one instance—when the email suggests the client act illegally.

However, that leaves room for it to provide legal protection when the email doesn't suggest the client act illegally. In order for this conclusion to be valid, the argument needs to establish that the disclaimer doesn't provide legal protection in that case, and so that's what the answer must do.

Answer Explanation:
The stimulus establishes that the disclaimer doesn't provide legal protections when an email suggests illegal activity. This answer establishes something that's true when it doesn't suggest illegal activity, which covers all the bases. In this case, the company doesn't need legal protection, and if legal protection isn't needed, then none is provided by the disclaimer. Thus, this answer establishes that the disclaimer—whether an email suggests illegal activity or not—doesn't provide protection, justifying the conclusion.

Key Takeaway:
Negating a sufficient condition and necessary condition when making an inference from conditional statements is a flaw. However, if you're trying to create a pair of conditionals that cover all possible situations, you can do so with negated sufficient conditions. Here, every conceivable situation is covered by a pair of conditionals, one for when an email suggests something illegal, and another for when it doesn't.

Incorrect. While the disclaimer isn't protecting the company from these penalties, it still might serve a purpose when the email doesn't suggest illegal activity, so this answer doesn't justify the conclusion.

Incorrect. This answer might establish that not every client has read the disclaimer, but it doesn't establish that it therefore serves no purpose—it might provide protections even if no one reads it.

Incorrect. This answer is way too weak to justify the very strong conclusion. The stimulus also notes that suggesting illegal activity subjects the company to liability, not the client following through on it.

Incorrect. This is completely out of scope of whether the disclaimer provides protections—it's not even clear that these clients learned how to illegally evade penalties from the company.