kingb wrote:
In the past
five years, Peak Productions pro
ts from recorded music sales has steadily declined. Peak cannot increase the number of recordings it releases, so it cannot increase revenue that way. Therefore, Peak has decided to drastically cut back on the number of recordings it releases. It will save on costs by only releasing recordings by its most popular artists. Thus, because the most popular artists bring in the most revenue on a per-recording basis, Peaks plan is likely to increase its annual pro
ts.
In the argument above, the two portions in boldface play which of the following roles?
(A) The
first and the second are both evidence offered by the argument as support for its main conclusion.
(B) The first presents a problem a response to which the argument assesses; the second is the judgment reached by that assessment.
(C) The
first is the position the argument seeks to establish; the second is a judgment the argument uses to support that position.
(D) The first is a development that the argument seeks to explain; the second is a prediction the argument makes in support of the explanation it offers.
(E) The
first presents a development whose likely outcome is at issue in the argument; the second is a judgment the argument uses in support of its conclusion about that outcome.
This problems gives us a great opportunity to discuss one particular approach to these
two boldface questions. Keep in mind there are several good approaches here, this is just one that happens to be very quick when it works. Just ask yourself: "Fact or Claim?"
Furthermore, if you find a
claim, you should act whether that claim is in fact the conclusion of the argument.
The first bold here is clearly a
fact (summarizing what has already happened), whereas the second is a
claim (it makes a prediction about the future). In fact, the second statement is actually the conclusion of whole argument.
Now let's run through the choices with this in mind:
(A) is
wrong because it says (2) is "evidence" (i.e. a FACT).
(B) is in still, because "presents a problem" would fit with FACT and "the judgement" would fit with CLAIM. Also, "the judgement reached" sounds a lot like "conclusion" to me.
(C) is
wrong because a "position" is a CLAIM, not a FACT.
(D) is
wrong, because the language here would suggest that the second is not in fact the main conclusion, which it is.
(E) is
wrong. Same problem as (D).
So (B) is correct!
There are often other things we need to consider on these problems. And clearly we have *vastly* over-simplified the argument by boiling it down to
- Statement 1 = "fact" and Statement 2 = "claim, which happens to be the conclusion"
... But, if it gets the job done!!
Cheers,
Mark