Iotaa wrote:
GMATNinjaI am not able to connect with option A. Can you please help me out?
Bambi2021 wrote:
I will leave this question behind as a big fat question mark.
(A) An anonymous donor gave a thousand dollars to our historical society. I would guess that that individual also volunteers at the children’s hospital.
What is the cause and what is the effect here? I see nothing but a fact. A gave dollars to B. Cause? Not applicable. Effect? I guess the society was grateful.
Over.
MKKrishnan wrote:
Can someone help me understand how option D was eliminated? Thank you in advance!
Lots of questions on this one!
To start with a caveat: you're very unlikely to encounter a question exactly like this on the GMAT. While LSAT questions are really helpful practice materials, some of them are a bit more difficult than your average GMAT questions and some follow patterns that you probably won't see on the GMAT. This one falls into both of those categories. That said, you can approach this one just like you'd approach any GMAT CR question.
Here's the question stem:
Quote:
Which one of the following arguments makes the same logical error as the one described by the author in the passage?
From this, we know that the author is describing a logical error. In our answer choices, we're searching for an argument that makes the error that the author describes.
The author lays out the error in the first sentence of the passage: "It is illogical to infer a second and different effect from a cause which is known only by one particular effect."
Here, the author describes a
single cause that is only known by a
single effect -- the author has no issue with this. What the author DOES have a problem with is inferring a
second effect to the same cause.
As an example, let's say that you know that eating too much ice cream causes an upset stomach. This is the ONLY effect that you know about eating ice cream. You can't then infer that eating ice cream ALSO causes a second effect, such as feeling jittery.
So, which answer choice infers a second effect from a single cause?
Quote:
(A) An anonymous donor gave a thousand dollars to our historical society. I would guess that that individual also volunteers at the children’s hospital.
In (A), the anonymous donor known to be the "cause" of one effect: a donation of $1000 to the historical society. Then, a
second effect -- volunteering at the children's hospital -- is attributed to the same cause.
This is the error that the author described, so keep (A).
Quote:
(D) The city orchestra received more funds from the local government this year than ever before. Clearly this administration is more civic-minded than previous ones.
Here, the "cause" is the local government, and the "effect" is that the orchestra received more funds this year than ever before. From this, an inference is made
about the cause -- the argument in (D) makes and inference that "this administration is more civic-minded than previous ones."
This might be a logical flaw, but it's not the error that the author describes. Instead of a second
effect being inferred, additional info about the
cause is being inferred.
(D) doesn't make the same flaw as the author describes in the passage, so eliminate (D).
(A) is the correct answer.
I hope that helps!
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