Bunuel
Joan got A's on all her homework assignments, so if she had gotten an A on her term paper, she could pass the course even without doing the class presentation. Unfortunately, she did not get an A on her term paper, so it is obvious that she will have to do the class presentation to pass the course.
The argument's reasoning is questionable because the argument
(A) ignores the possibility that Joan must either have an A on her term paper or do the class presentation to pass the course.
(B) presupposes without justification that Joan's not getting an A on her term paper prevents her from passing the course without doing the class presentation.
(C) overlooks the importance of class presentations to a student's overall course grade.
(D) ignores the possibility that if Joan has to do the class presentation to pass the course, then she did not get an A on her term paper.
(E) fails to take into account the possibility that some students get A's on their term papers but do not pass the course.
Official Explanation
The argument states that if Joan got an A on the term paper, then she will be able to pass the course without doing the class presentation. Since she didn’t get an A on the paper, the author concludes that she needs to do the class presentation to pass the class. Note, however, that the statement “If A on the paper, then no presentation” doesn’t tell us anything about what happens if Joan doesn’t get an A on the paper. It could be that she won’t need to do the presentation regardless of her paper grade.
(B) sums up this objection.
(A) introduces as a possibility the necessity of getting an A on either the paper or on the presentation to pass the class. There are no grounds for this assertion, and it doesn’t directly affect this argument anyway. Since the argument deals specifically with the necessity of the class presentation, we certainly couldn’t say, as (C) does, that it ignores this factor. (D) simply restates the conclusion of the argument, while (E) discusses the possibility, irrelevant here, that some students get A’s on their papers and still fail the course. Since Joan didn’t get an A on her paper, we don’t really care about that group of students.