PrepTest 39, Section 2, Question 18

Difficulty:

All historians are able to spot trends. But anyone able to spot trends is able to distinguish the significant from the insignificant. Thus anyone who can distinguish the significant from the insignificant is a historian.

Question

The flawed reasoning in which one of the following arguments most closely resembles that in the argument above?

All expressions used for emotional impact are expressions used by poets. All figures of speech are expressions used for emotional impact. So any expression used by poets is a figure of speech.

Political systems whose laws originate in elected legislatures are prone to factionalism. Factionalism leads to civil disorder. Thus political systems not run by autocrats have a tendency to fall into civil disorder.

Animals that possess horns or antlers use them not to attack prey but for intraspecies combat. In fact, animals so equipped never have the claws or fangs that are possessed by predators. Thus any animal that fights with members of its own species is not a predator.

No one without a deep desire to communicate can be a blues musician. So short-story writers, all of whom have that same desire to communicate, could also have become blues musicians.

People living in open and democratic countries have customs that are determined at least in part by an inherited past. But no country's past is a product of free choice. Thus people living in open and democratic countries can never be entirely free.

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