QUESTION TEXT: To achieve the traditional hotness of spicy…
QUESTION TYPE: Parallel Reasoning
CONCLUSION: None of the traditionally used hot spices is irreplaceable.
REASONING: If food is sufficiently spiced, it is impossible to distinguish which of the traditional used spices is causing the hot sensation.
ANALYSIS: The author is arguing that, because the spices produce an effect that cannot be distinguished from each other, they are all interchangeable with no difference. This is not a very good argument – just because there is no noticeable difference in the heat produced doesn’t mean there is no other important difference between the traditionally used hot spices.
The correct answer will make a similar argument about things producing the same effect and conclude that none of them are individually necessary to produce the effect.
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- CORRECT. This is the same reasoning. All of the pigments can make underwater vision possible, so the author concludes that none of them are individually necessary to produce the effect.
- This is not even close to the argument above. The spice argument didn’t engage any of the same concepts – there was nothing about overdoing or producing a negative outcome.
- This is a sufficient/necessary condition mistake, which isn’t what the author did.
- The author isn’t saying that the spices are unique and irreplaceable – in fact, this is the opposite!
- This is a very different argument as well. This is an argument that notes a necessary condition and takes the contrapositive – which is not what the spice author did.
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