A university psychology department received a large donation from a textbook company after agreeing to use one of the...

Irina on September 5, 2019

@hales,

The department chair argues that the book was chosen for solely academic reasons citing the committee's assessment as evidence for the book's academic quality. (A) undermines this evidence by saying that the committee was biased in their assessment, hence the department chair's position is no longer supported. (D) tells us that the chair is one of the members of the committee, but this fact alone is insufficient to infer that she influenced the overall rating by the committee as we have no information how many members there are and what is the procedure for determining the rating. This fact also fails to demonstrate how her position on the committee has anything to do with receiving a donation by the textbook company. She could be aware of the potential donation and be on the committee and still evaluate the textbook objectively without additional facts suggesting the opposite.

Let me know if this makes sense and if you have any further questions.