PrepTest 154

Incorrect. There's no conditional logic in the stimulus, so nothing here is necessary or required. It's way too weak even for that.

Incorrect. The stimulus never suggested this. The author says using a journalistic writing style increases a novel's chances of popularity, not that novel-writing is possible for all journalists.

Incorrect. The argument wouldn't need to do this in order to be valid. It just needs to prove the conclusion, that there's a causal relationship between journalistic style and popularity.

Correct. Argument or Facts:
Argument

Valid or Flawed:
Flawed

Question Type:
Errors in Reasoning

Stimulus Summary:
Many popular novels are written in a somewhat journalistic style, and many popular novelists were once journalists. So if you write like a journalist, your novel is more likely to be popular.

Answer Anticipation:
Pretty big issue of logical force here. "Many" is such a vague quantifier that there could only be three or four popular novels written in a journalistic style, or every popular novel ever written could be in a journalistic style. There's no indication of whether or not novels written in a journalistic style outsell novels that are not. The causation claim here is totally unproven; expect the correct answer choice to point that out in some way.

Answer Explanation:
Exactly! If far more novels not written in a journalistic style become popular, then writing like a journalist could actually hurt a novel's chances of becoming popular. You would need stronger quantification, like, ideally, "all popular novels" to make this argument valid.

Key Takeaway:
Remember that vague quantifiers like "many," "several," "lots of," and "a few" are all too imprecise to be judged as moderate or strong. They're all weak, which means they boil down to "some," which in turn boils down to "at least one."

Incorrect. The argument only deals with popularity. It never even touches on quality.