A corporation created a new division. To staff it, applicants were rigorously screened and interviewed. Those selecte...

shunhe on September 13, 2020

Hi @Abigail-Lee,

Thanks for the question! So let’s take a look at this argument. We’re told a corporation creates a new division, which is staffed with applicants who are among the most effective/efficient/creative workers the corporation ever hired. So, the argument concludes, the new division must’ve been among the most effective, efficient, and creative divisions the corporation had ever created.

Now we’re asked for a flawed pattern of reasoning that most matches the argument. Well, what’s the flawed pattern of reasoning in the argument? It’s basically a part to whole problem, we’re assuming that the characteristics of the individuals will apply to the whole group as well. But is this true? Maybe, though each of these individuals are great at their own and effective/efficient/creative, they just suck at working together with other people. Maybe they’re super cutthroat and competitive and will just work to screw each other over to get to the top. That would make the division pretty bad, even though everyone individually is good at those things. So we need to find an answer choice that makes that same mistake.

Looking at (D), we’re told that we picked the best players in the league to put on the two All-Star teams, and we conclude from that the the two All-Star teams are the two best teams this year. But again, that’s applying the characteristics of the part (the player) to the whole (the team). These players might be really bad at playing with each other. It’d be like if you put John Wall and LeBron James on the same team.

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