Flawed Parallel Reasoning Questions - - Question 1

The formation of hurricanes that threaten the United States mainland is triggered by high atmospheric winds off the w...

tselimovic November 9, 2014

Clarification

Could you please break down the passage and the correct answer choice?

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Naz November 13, 2014

This is a classic cause and effect flaw.

An observed event occurs: abundant rainfall in sub-Saharan Africa, which is followed by another event: hurricanes hitting the United States mainland with particular frequency.

From this the argument concludes that, therefore, the first observance, i.e. the abundant rains, must have caused the second one, i.e. promoted the ability of the winds to form hurricanes, which are triggered by high atmospheric winds.

Answer choice (C) has this exact same flaw.

We see that many of those who later become successful entrepreneurs had played competitive sports in college.

So we have an observed event: playing competitive sports in college, which is followed by many of those players becoming successful entrepreneurs. The argument then concludes from this that playing competitive sports must enhance, i.e. contribute to/have an effect on, one's entrepreneurial ability.

Hope that clears things up! Please let us know if you have any other questions.