Town Representative: The new advertisements protesting plans by the town to build a new pier for large cruise ships have been appearing daily. The advertisements claim that the new pier will bring in more cruise ships and ruin the quaint charm of the town. However, these claims can be dismissed. Most of these advertisements were paid for by a major developer who currently profits greatly from allowing cruise ships to offload passengers at his property when they anchor in the nearby bay.
Which of the following most accurately describes a flaw in the town representative’s argument?
A. It focuses on the motivations for the people making a particular claim without considering the motivations of other people making the same claim.
B. It directly attacks the merits of the claims made in the advertisements but does not provide evidence to support the opposing view.
C. It mischaracterizes the views put forth in the advertisements and then directly attacks these mischaracterized views.
D. It rejects a claim by addressing the motivations for the people making it rather than by addressing its actual merits.
E. It fails to consider the possibility that some of these advertisements were paid for by town advocates with legitimate concerns on the effects of cruise ships.
Weekend Verbal Challenge Question!![](https://gmatclub.com/forum/download/file.php?id=66410)
For this type of “describe the flaw” method of reasoning question, you should first attack the argument to find flaws on your own and then decide which answer choice properly describes one of them. In analyzing the Town Representatives argument, you should notice that he does not actually address the specific claims made in the advertisements. Rather he just questions the motivations behind the claims. What if indeed the new cruise ship pier WILL bring in more cruise ships and ruin the charm of the town, but the ads are being paid for by a developer with questionable motivations. Then can the claims really be dismissed? This flaw is described perfectly by answer choice (D) as the representative only addresses the motivations but not the claims themselves. For (A), the argument does focus on the motivations but the issue is NOT that it isn’t considering the motivations of other people – the issue is that it does not address the claims. For (B) the argument specifically does not attack the merits of the claim so this is clearly incorrect and for (C) it is not mischaracterizing the views. For (E), the argument does not fail to consider this possibility as it only says “most of advertisements” were paid for by a developer. The argument acknowledges there are other ads paid by different people but is just emphasizing that most come from this person.