According to the passage, the LRCWA's report recommended that contingency-fee agreements
aguar11on February 11, 2020
Example 6
I chose answer choice (D) for this question because my logic pointed me to cause-without-effect. The cause (solving a low proportion of cases) shows the cause without the effect of being an incompetent detective (he was previously a detective in another city), so how does that not weaken the argument as opposed to answer choice (A)?
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Also, I do not understand why Carl being incompetent is the cause. The way the passage is phrased, it literally says that he is clearly an incompetent detective, and then the next sentence implies that the cause is that he has solved only 1 out of 25 of cases assigned to him.
Ravion February 13, 2020
@aguar11,
Happy to help!
Let's take a look at the argument first.
Basically, the argument is saying that because Carl has solved the smallest percentage of his cases out of anyone on the police force, he is an incompetent detective.
In looking at this argument, there's a clear problem. What if Carl was given the most complex cases? The argument is assuming that all cases are of equal difficulty, but that hasn't been established. If Carl only solved 1 out of 25 cases, but all of his cases were harder than any other detective's cases, then we can't conclude that he's incompetent at his job.
In the answer choices, we're looking for something that touches on this, providing a reason why Carl's solved a smaller percentage of cases than his colleagues. Maybe his cases are more challenging, or maybe they require more time to complete.
(A) says, "Because the police chief regards Carl as the most capable detective, she assigns him only the most difficult cases, ones that others have failed to solve."
(A) looks great. If Carl's cases are so hard that other team members have not been able to solve them, then it makes a lot of sense that he's only been able to solve 1 out of 25 over the last couple of years. His cases are simply more challenging and might take a lot longer to solve. This matches out anticipation well, and it's the correct answer choice.
(D) says, "Carl was previously a detective in a police department in another city, and in the 4 years he spent there, he solved only 1 out of 30 crimes."
You said you originally chose this. The problem with (D) is that it's actually committing the exact same fallacy that the stimulus is committing. We do not know whether Carl's cases at his past job were extremely hard to solve or not, so (D) is out.
Does this make sense? Let us know if you have any other questions!
