LR Question 20 Explanation
QUESTION TEXT: Columnist: Almost anyone can be an expert, for…
QUESTION TYPE: Sufficient Assumption
CONCLUSION: Almost anyone can be an expert.
REASONING: There are no official rules for being an expert. Anyone is an expert if they can convince some people that they have qualifications in an area.
ANALYSIS: We don’t know if almost anyone can actually convince people of their expertise. If they could then this would be a good argument.
___________
- CORRECT. If this is true, then those people (“almost anyone”) can be experts.
- The conclusion is that almost anyone can be an expert. It doesn’t matter what people can do once they are experts.
- This would weaken the argument that almost anyone can be an expert. Not everyone has qualifications.
- This doesn’t even have to be true, based on the stimulus. Convincing people was a sufficient condition but not a necessary condition. This doesn’t help show that almost anybody can be an expert.
- “Some” people could be as few as 2-3. This doesn’t let us conclude that almost anyone can become an expert.
More Resources for Sufficient Assumption Questions
- Conditional Reasoning Article: Learn about conditional statements.
- LR Diagrams Guide: Learn how to draw LR diagrams.
- Intro to Conditional Reasoning: Learn conditional reasoning basics.
- Intro Course lesson: This intro course lesson covers Sufficient Assumption questions.
- Mastery Seminar lesson: This LR Mastery seminar lesson covers sufficient assumption questions.
I don’t get why Answer choice D is incorrect. Can anyone explain it in more detail?
The argument is structured as follows:
Premise: There are no official guidelines determining what an expert must know.
Premise: Anybody who convinces some people of their qualifications in an area is an expert.
Conclusion: Almost anyone can be an expert.
The reasoning suggests that convincing others is sufficient for being an expert. In other words, if someone convinces others of their qualifications, they are an expert under this definition.
There are two issues with D. D says that every expert has convinced some people of their qualifications. This is saying that having convinced others is necessary for being an expert (i.e. all experts must have convinced some people of their expertise). This is not logically equivalent to the stimulus. For convincing to be a necessary condition, the stimulus would have to assert that convincing someone is REQUIRED to be an expert or that ALL experts have done so, which it doesn’t do. The stimulus says that convincing someone is enough to be an expert. If it helps to break it down into conditional statements, here’s the breakdown:
Argument (sufficient condition): If you convince others -> you’re an expert
Answer D (necessary condition): If you are an expert -> you’ve convinced others
The other issue is that it does not bridge the gap because it does not establish that almost anyone can be an expert. The argument requires an assumption that connects the ability to convince with being an expert. The stimulus says that anyone who manages to convince someone of their expertise can be an expert, and concludes that almost anyone can be an expert. As Graeme notes, how do we know that almost anyone can convince someone?
This is the gap that A fills. If A were false, meaning most people were completely unable to convince others, then the conclusion (almost anyone can be an expert) would not logically follow. Since the argument depends on the idea that people generally have the ability to convince others, A is the key assumption.
Hopefully that clarifies it, let me know if you have further questions!