PrepTest 24, Section 2, Question 8

Difficulty:

Sociologist: The claim that there is a large number of violent crimes in our society is false, for this claim is based upon the large number of stories in newspapers about violent crimes. But since violent crimes are very rare occurrences, newspapers are likely to print stories about them.

Question

The sociologist's argument is flawed because it

presupposes that most newspaper stories are about violent crime

presupposes the truth of the conclusion it is attempting to establish

assumes without warrant that the newspaper stories in question are not biased

mistakes a property of each member of a group taken as an individual for a property of the group taken as a whole

uncritically draws an inference from what has been true in the past to what will be true in the future

Raise Hand ✋

Explanations

Crime & newspapers

This speaker's talking in circles.

They argue that there isn't a large amount of crime. Why? Because the claim is based on newspaper articles. They continue by using "but since violent crimes are very rare..." as a premise to conclude that newspapers are likely to print stories about these rare occurrences.

That's concluding something unproven and then using that unproven conclusion as evidence of another, related conclusion.

I'm totally expecting a Flaw question, because this is textbook circular reasoning.

And so it is—let's go find that answer choice.

Nope, it's circular reasoning.

Bingo. This is the answer. They say "there isn't much crime" and then subsequently repeat the notion that "crimes are rare."

No. Their error in reasoning has nothing to do with biased articles. They're somewhat alleging this, but this isn't the speaker's mistake.

Nope. This isn't a part-to-whole or whole-to-part flaw.

Nah. This argument isn't arguing that was has been will be again.