Moralist: TV talk shows are contributing to the moral decline in our country. By constantly being shown the least mo...
JonJayApril 13, 2022
"By presenting immoral guests"
This answer, to me, proves to be somewhat problematic in that the word 'immoral' is used, whereas in the stimulus, "least moral" is used.
When looking at explanations on answer choices for other questions in the past, I have noted consistent commentary warning test takers like myself against equating certain terms and being mindful to avoid implied opposites when negating terms (i.e. for the word "farthest", the negated term is not necessarily "shortest" but instead "not the farthest").
Anyway, my point is that "least moral" and "Immoral" are not necessarily equivalents to each other. You could be the least moral person in a group and still not be considered immoral.
Clearly, drawing that distinction on this question would be detrimental as it would likely cause a student to not select this answer. So, what is a rule of thumb for when we should draw that distinction and be quite picky with the meaning of words, and when should we not be picky and allow different, but related, words to mesh into a similar implied meaning?
Thanks,
Jon
Replies
Create a free account to read and
take part in forum discussions.
I agree that there is a small disconnect between "least moral" and "immoral." However, this is a pretty small jump to make. While immortal is subjective, I think it's fair to say that the least moral person in any society could be considered to be immoral. Perhaps there could be some perfect society where even the least moral members are not objectively immoral, but that does not seem to be the case in this question.
Note that this is a small jump, but it's not the same as assuming that "Not the tallest" means the shortest. The second tallest person is still not the tallest. However, the situation here is akin to saying that the "least tall" person in a society is short. Perhaps this person is objectively not "short" (maybe everyone else in this culture is 8 feet tall), but it is generally fair to think that, when talkinging about a whole country, the tallest person is tall, the shortest person is short, the least moral person is immoral.
