| Critical Reasoning Butler: August 2025 |
| August 4 | CR 1 | CR 2 |
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CR 1The advent of low-cost freight and shipping has allowed businesses to locate closer to areas ideal for human resources - places where talented people live or want to live - and farther from areas that provide them their most important natural resources. Take the example of Allied Iron Works, which recently moved its operations from Eastern Pennsylvania to San Francisco.
Which of the following is an assumption required by the argument?
A) More people want to live in San Francisco than in Eastern Pennsylvania.
B) Allied Iron Works' most important natural resources cannot be found near San Francisco.
C) It is not cheaper for a company to run its operations from San Francisco than from Eastern Pennsylvania.
D) No iron companies other than Allied Iron Works are located in San Francisco.
E) Fewer people live in Eastern Pennsylvania than in San Francisco.
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CR 2A telephone poll conducted in two states asked respondents whether their homes were cold during the winter months. Ninety-nine percent of respondents said their houses were always warm during the winter. The pollsters published their findings, concluding that ninety-nine percent of all homes in the United States have adequate heating.
Which of the following most accurately describes a questionable technique employed by the pollsters in drawing their conclusion?
A. The poll wrongly ascribes the underlying causes of the problem.
B. The poll assumes conditions in the two states are representative of the entire country.
C. The pollsters conducted the poll by telephone, thereby relying on the veracity of respondents.
D. The pollsters didn’t visit respondents’ houses in person, so no measure of the temperature in a subject’s home was actually made.
E. The pollsters never defined the term “cold” in terms of a specific temperature.