Paretan newspaper editor: David Salino assails as distorted our quotat

Question

Paretan newspaper editor: David Salino assails as distorted our quotation of remarks on Paretan values by the Qinkoan prime minister and bemoans what he sees as the likely consequences for Paretan-Qinkoan relations. Those consequences will not be our fault, however, since officials at the Qinkoan embassy and scholars at the Institute of Qinkoan Studies have all confirmed that, as printed, our quotation was an acceptable translation of the prime minister's remarks. No newspaper can fairly be blamed for the consequences of its reporting when that reporting is accurate.

Which one of the following is an assumption on which the editors argument depends:

A. The confirmation that the translation is acceptable is sufficient to show that the prime minister's remarks were accurately reported.
B. Newspapers ought not to consider the consequences of their coverage in deciding what to report.
C. If the newspaper's rendering of the prime minister's remarks was not distorted, then there is no reason to fear adverse consequences from reporting the remarks.
D. If David Salino was prepared to praise the newspaper for any favorable consequences of quoting the prime minister's remarks, he could then hold the newspaper to blame for adverse consequences.
E. Only scholars or people with official standing are in a position to pass judgment on whether a translation of Qinkoan into Paretan is acceptable.

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:?: *Hufff...*, OA is provided. BUT, I would love to hear from any non-native how you tackle the question. Thanks

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Official Answer

A

VeritasPrepBrandon · Accepted Answer

This is a great Veritas Prep question. I am not a non-native speaker, but as a general rule of thumb you can assume that synonyms do NOT exist in critical reasoning questions. It is very easy to overlook this and think that the question is just mixing up their word choice, but the question is almost always instead shifting scope. Veritas has a very basic example of this scope shift in the example:

Premise) All men are mortal
Premise) Socrates is a dog
Conclusion) Therefore Socrates is mortal

The missing assumption here would link those premises together, saying something like "What is true of men is true of dogs." This argument's flaw is of course much more obvious, but it is the exact same flaw that occurs here. Here the argument reads:

Premise) Our quotation was an acceptable translation
Premise) No newspaper can be blamed when their reporting is accurate
Conclusion) The consequences are not our fault

Just as men are not the same thing as dogs, acceptable translation is not the same thing as accurate reporting. My advice would be to always be VERY suspicious when two premises use different words, as they are probably using this nasty scope shift trick. Answer choice A links these premises together, and is thus correct.

An interesting sidenote, answer choice E would be correct also if the word "only" were not included. The fact that one of the premises relies on the judgement of scholars or people with official standing means that it must be assumed those people are in a position to pass judgement over the acceptability of translations. It does not, however, have to be assumed that they are the "only" ones able to pass this judgement, and thus that word "only" goes too far and makes this answer choice incorrect.

I hope this helps!

riyazgilani · Answer

i am not able to figure out what's wrong with B.

if we negate B, it attacks the conclusion. it will become like "newspaper ought to consider consequences of of their reporting"

VeritasPrepBrandon · Answer

So let's address B then. B is completely out of scope, but them referring to the consequences makes it appear less so. Let's negate it and plug it back in to test:

Premise) Our quotation was an acceptable translation
Premise) No newspaper can be blamed when their reporting is accurate
Premise) Newspapers OUGHT to consider the consequences of their coverage in deciding what to report
Conclusion) The consequences are not our fault

The negated premise B here is completely irrelevant, because the conclusion is that the consequences are not their fault, not anything about whether they should care. It does not attack the conclusion here, because saying that newspapers out to consider consequences does not attack the idea that these consequences are not their fault. The premises/logic for why the consequences are not their fault has nothing to do with caring or not caring about consequences, but rather has to do with the actions that were taken with regards to translation and reporting.

Does that make sense? Another relevant point - wrong answer choices on assumption critical reasoning questions can still weaken (attack) the argument when negated. They will be strengthen answer choices, but not the correct assumption answer choice. The correct assumption answer choice, when negated, absolutely trainwrecks an argument...it is much stronger.

apoorv601 · Answer

A
Conclusion - No newspaper can fairly be blamed for the consequences of its reporting when that reporting is accurate; reporting is accurate
Premises - officials report quotation was an acceptable translation of the prime minister's remarks; David Salino remarks
Assumption - That acceptable translation = accurate reporting

apoorv601 · Answer

Yes i also think this is out of scope as it the argument doesn't talks about whether newspaper should consider the consequences or not but that the newspaper cannot be blamed if the reporting is correct

pacifist85 · Answer

A. The confirmation that the translation is acceptable is sufficient to show that the prime minister's remarks were accurately reported.

The point here I guess is to say that the paper cannot be blamed because its report of what the pm said was accurate.
However, this accuracy was determined, because "officials at the Qinkoan embassy and scholars at the Institute of Qinkoan Studies" comfirmed so.
If they were wrong though, so would the comfirmation be. In other words, this comfirmation does not have to be sufficient, which would mean that the pm's remakrs might have been inaccurately quoted.

You don't really need to be a native. It is the first sentence that uses difficult language. You don't really need that sentence though to respond.

Nevernevergiveup · Answer

I'm non-native and this is how I tackle the question.

Paretan newspaper editor: David Salino assails as distorted our quotation of remarks on Paretan values by the Qinkoan prime minister and bemoans what he sees as the likely consequences for Paretan-Qinkoan relations............. there appears to be some threat as a consequence of reporting a news Conclusion: Those consequences will not be our fault, ............ editor defends his paper. reason by editor : since officials at the Qinkoan embassy and scholars at the Institute of Qinkoan Studies have all confirmed that, as printed, our quotation was an acceptable translation of the prime minister's remarks............doc is certified by sb to be good Assumption: that certification seems to be enough however, No newspaper can fairly be blamed for the consequences of its reporting when that reporting is accurate......... additional info Which one of the following is an assumption on which the editors argument depends: A. The confirmation that the translation is acceptable is sufficient to show that the prime minister's remarks were accurately reported.......... This is inline with our pre-thinking as above B. Newspapers ought not to consider the consequences of their coverage in deciding what to report.......... this seems too strong. Anyways they are not deciding what to report they have already reported the case here and discussion is here whether consequences are their fault i.e., should they face anything or not. C. If the newspaper's rendering of the prime minister's remarks was not distorted, then there is no reason to fear adverse consequences from reporting the remarks............ we don't have to assume this as here not distortion but accuracy of report is the reason to not face consequences. D. If David Salino was prepared to praise the newspaper for any favorable consequences of quoting the prime minister's remarks, he could then hold the newspaper to blame for adverse consequences............. no logic as thus needs to be assumed as this weakens if not anything. OFS E. Only scholars or people with official standing are in a position to pass judgment on whether a translation of Qinkoan into Paretan is acceptable................ they gave judgement in favor of editor in this case but it need not be assumed that they are the only ones who can do so. we can eliminate B,C and D easily but A and E are strong contenders where A is the winner.

BillyZ · Answer

General Description : This question asks you to  find an assumption  on which the editor's argument depends. In other words, find the statement whose truth is required if the argument is to succeed in demonstrating its conclusion.

A.  Correct . The editor presents two premises in support of the conclusion that the  newspaper cannot be blamed for the consequences of its reporting : First, that the quotation was an acceptable translation, and second, that " no newspaper can fairly be blamed for the consequences of its reporting when that reporting is accurate ." For this second premise to have relevance to the first, it must be the case that reporting the acceptable translation was in fact  reporting accurately ; that is, response (A) must be assumed to be true.

B. Incorrect. The editor need not assume that newspapers should not consider the consequences of their coverage; the point of the argument is that the newspaper should not be blamed for such consequences, if the reporting was accurate.

C. Incorrect. The editor is not taking a stand on the question of whether any adverse consequences will actually occur, and so need not assume response (C). The point of the argument is just that if they do occur, the newspaper should not be blamed for them, if the newspaper's reporting was accurate.

D. Incorrect. This statement is irrelevant to the editor's argument.

E. Incorrect. The editor does presume that confirmation of a translation's accuracy by Qinkoan officials and scholars suffices to show that the translation is, in fact, accurate. But the editor does not (and need not) assume that this would be the only way to certify the accuracy of such a translation.

Difficulty Level: Medium difficulty

Tips and Pitfalls : Another way to think about the question of whether an assumption is required by an argument is to think about  what happens to the argument if the assumption turns out to be false . If the argument cannot possibly succeed when the assumption is false, then the assumption is required by the argument.

VerbalBot · Answer

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Paretan newspaper editor: David Salino assails as distorted our quotat

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Paretan newspaper editor: David Salino assails as distorted our quotat

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