Flawed Parallel Reasoning Questions - - Question 27

Of all the houses in the city's historic district, the house that once belonged to the Tyler family is the most famou...

QuinM August 19, 2020

What is wrong with D?

I understand why the correct answer is E. But I am having trouble understanding why D does not follow the same logic?

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shunhe August 20, 2020

Hi @QuinM,

Thanks for the question! So let’s take a look at the stimulus first to figure out the flaw. We’re told that of all the houses in this historic district, the Tyler family’s former house is the most famous by far. And we know that the historic district is the most famous district in the city, so the argument concludes that the Tyler house has to be the city’s most famous house.

Well, what’s the flaw here? It’s that the argument takes something true of a part (most famous house in the district) and assumes that it’s true of the whole (most famous house in the whole city). Maybe the historic district is the most famous overall because it has the most famous landmarks, but the most famous house in the city is still somewhere else. So that’s the kind of flaw we need to replicater.

Now take a look at (D), which tells us that of all the fish stores in the harbor area, Miller’s Fish Market has the most exotic selection. And since there’s more fish stores in the harbor area than anywhere else, it has to have the most exotic selection of fish. But this isn’t the exact same, is it? The argument would have to read “since the fish stores in Miller’s Fish Market have on average more exotic selections than anywhere else in the city” or something like that. But it goes from the number of shops to the selection of fish, which is another flaw that the original stimulus doesn’t make.

Hope this helps! Feel free to ask any other questions that you might have.