PrepTest 145

Incorrect. If anything, the stimulus establishes that the voting record was established before the donations came in. After all, the donations are for reelection.

Incorrect. There's no conditional language in this stimulus, and it doesn't commit an illegal reversal.

Incorrect. The conclusion isn't moral—it's about whether someone is being influenced by others. If the conclusion stated that Joshi was doing something wrong or corrupt, then this would be potentially correct.

Correct. Argument or Facts:
Argument

Valid or Flawed:
Flawed

Question Type:
Errors in Reasoning

Stimulus Summary:
Joshi votes to help property developers and he receives a ton of campaign donations from them. Therefore, he's influenced by these donations.

Answer Anticipation:
One way of seeing causality is to look at language establishing something as a cause, but it can be easy to neglect to see language that establishes something as having an effect as counting. Here, the conclusion is causal—the contributions are having an effect on Joshi, so therefore they must be a cause.

Since the conclusion is causal, we should check the premises to see if they're correlations. And they are! Joshi's voting record is aligned with his campaign donations. However, that's not a sign that his voting is influenced by the donations—in fact, this is a key example of an argument that might be reversing the causality. Maybe those donations are flowing to Joshi because he's voting to help the property developers—they want to make sure he stays in office because his views align with theirs.

Let's find the answer bringing up reversed causality.

Answer Explanation:
This answer highlights the possible reversed causality here. The donations could be an effect of Joshi's voting record, rather than a cause of it.

Key Takeaway:
When analyzing an argument, don't just think of words highlighting something as a cause as showing causality—also see language highlighting something as an effect or as having an effect as establishing causality. And when reversed causality makes sense, it's generally the correct answer.

Incorrect. The conclusion is about influence on Joshi's voting, and no premise discusses that—just potential sources of the influence. The argument isn't circular.