LR Question 13 Explanation
QUESTION TEXT: Although most builders do not consider the…
QUESTION TYPE: Flawed Reasoning
CONCLUSION: Papercrete is likely promising for large scale construction.
REASONING: Builders who use papercrete regularly for small scale projects think that it will work well for large scale projects. These builders are familiar with papercrete.
Most builders disagree, but they don’t work regularly with papercrete.
ANALYSIS: This is a tricky question. The argument implies that those who work with papercrete know papercrete the best. After all, they know papercrete’s properties.
But maybe the other builders also understand papercrete. They don’t use it because they know it is a terrible material for large scale projects.
The argument doesn’t say that large scale builders don’t know about papercrete. Papercrete could be a cheap material that works well for small projects but fails during large projects.
___________
- Tempting. But read carefully – we’re not told that papercrete actually is ‘promising for small scale construction’. It’s possible that the small scale builders are idiots who use papercrete despite its flaws.
- The argument was more than an appeal to uninformed popular opinion. The author implied that small scale builders had special expertise which would let us trust their opinion.
- Promising is used in the same sense both times: material that would likely be useful.
- We have no idea who is most familiar with papercrete. The passage doesn’t say what large scale builders know about it.
- CORRECT. It’s possible that large scale builders are very familiar with papercrete, and because they know what it’s like, they realize that it would be disastrous for large scale projects.
More Resources for Flaw Questions
- Flaw drills: Use these to practice making examples of abstract flaws.
- Intro Course lesson: This intro course lesson covers Flaw questions.
- Mastery Seminar lesson: This LR Mastery seminar lesson covers flaw questions.
it seems like the stimulus is pointing to A in it’s language:
“Although most builders do not consider papercrete to be promising for LSC….those who work with it think otherwise.”
Isn’t this insinuating that they think otherwise on it’s being promising?
There’s a subtle distinction here. If you look carefully, the stimulus only mentions that the builders use papercrete primarily on small-scale projects, and that they think it might be a promising material for large-scale construction (the “think otherwise” bit you mentioned). Nowhere does the stimulus explicitly say that the builders or the person making the argument think it’s promising for small-scale construction and that therefore it might be promising for large-scale construction.