QUESTION TEXT: Business owner: Although allowing coal mining in…
QUESTION TYPE: Role in Argument
CONCLUSION: Coal mining will cause an overall decrease in jobs in the region.
REASONING: Coal mining will create jobs, but more jobs that depend on the region’s natural beauty will be lost to industrial activity.
ANALYSIS: We can break down this argument and look at each individual piece to figure out how this argument is meant to work.
Premise 1: Many businesses depend on our regions natural beauty.
Premise 2: Coal mining will cause these businesses to close because of industrial activity.
Conclusion: Coal mining will cause jobs to decrease.
When analyzing our argument, make sure to be thinking about how each component interacts with the others. Does premise 1 support our conclusion? Notice that it doesn’t support it directly. There is no link between businesses being based on the region’s natural beauty and coal mining causing job decrease. Instead Premise 1 supports Premise 2, which links Premise 1 to the conclusion. It is because businesses depend on natural beauty (premise 1), which coal mining will destroy (premise 2), that causes jobs to decrease overall (conclusion).
___________
- CORRECT. See analysis. Premise 1 supports Premise 2, which in turn supports the Conclusion.
- See analysis. Premise 1 does not directly support the conclusion.
- It is neither a conclusion on its own, because it is supported by nothing else, and does not directly support the conclusion.
- This only indirectly supports the conclusion, so it is a premise.
- Everything is wrong here. It is a fact, not a hypothesis, there is no evidence offered for this statement, and it is used to support the conclusion.
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