PrepTest 20, Section 2, Question 17

Difficulty:

Whenever a company loses a major product-liability lawsuit, the value of the company's stocks falls significantly within hours after the announcement. Cotoy has long been involved in a major product-liability lawsuit, and its stocks fell significantly in value today. Therefore, we can be sure that an unfavorable judgment against Cotoy in that lawsuit was announced earlier today.

Question

Which one of the following contains flawed reasoning that most closely parallels that in the argument above?

Whenever a business treats its customers discourteously, its customers begin to shop elsewhere. Shopwell wants to keep all of its customers; therefore, its employees will never treat customers discourteously.

Whenever the large airlines decrease fares, the financial stability of smaller competing airlines is adversely affected. Therefore, the smaller competing airlines' financial stability must be seriously threatened when the large airlines announce a large price decrease.

Whenever a country shows a lack of leadership on international issues, respect for the country's policies begins to decline. Therefore, to gain respect for its policies, a country should show leadership on international issues.

Whenever an entering student at Cashman College wins the Performance Fellowship, he or she receives $10,000. Therefore, Eula, a student who has enrolled at Cashman, must have won the Performance Fellowship, because she just received $10,000 from the college.

Whenever a company advertises its products effectively, the company's sales increase. Oroco's sales have not increased; therefore, it is likely that the company did not advertise its products effectively.

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