| Critical Reasoning Butler: August 2025 |
| August 18 | CR 1 | CR 2 |
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CR 1 The recent turnaround of the LEX Corporation is a splendid example of how an astute chief executive officer can rechannel a company’s assets toward profitability. With the new CEO at the helm, LEX has gone, in only three business quarters, from a 10 million dollar operating loss to a 22 million dollar operating gain.
A major flaw in the reasoning of the passage above is that
A. the passage assumes that the new CEO was the only factor that affected the corporation’s recent success
B. the recent success of the corporation may be only temporary
C. the chief executive officer may be drawing a salary and bonus that will set a damaging precedent for this and other corporations
D. the author does not define “profitability”
E. rechanneling assets is only a short-term solution
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CR 2 A telephone poll conducted over two states asked respondents whether their homes were ever cold during the winter months. 99% of respondents said they were never cold during the winter months. The pollsters published their findings, concluding that 99% of all homes in the United States have adequate heating.
Which of the following most accurately describes what might be 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, thus relying on the veracity of the subjects they spoke to.
D. The pollsters did not go to the houses in person, thus precluding the actual measurement of temperatures in the subjects’ homes.
E. The pollsters never defined the term “cold” in terms of a specific temperature.