Q15 - Commentator: Many social critics claim that contempora

[isaac.botier]

Q15. (E)
Question Type: Flaw (Assumption Family)

We’re dealing with a flaw question. Let’s identify the core and think about the gap between premise and conclusion.

The word "but" in the middle of the prompt is a good indicator that the prompt is about to shift into core territory. Here is the core:

Journalists have always been cynics + today’s journalists more restrained than their predecessors --> The critics’ claim that journalists are undermining society’s well-being with their cynicism is absurd

Here is a similar argument that might make the flaw jump out:

People say that oil companies spilling oil into the ocean is hurting sea creatures. But they’re wrong! Oil companies have been doing this forever. In fact, oil companies today are spilling way less oil than oil companies did in the past.

These arguments overlook the possibility that the behavior in question has always been problematic. Just because journalists (or oil companies) have always been acting a certain way doesn’t mean that their current behavior is fine.

(A) doesn’t address the gap between journalists always behaving a certain way as support for journalists’ current behavior not undermining society’s well-being. If (A) were true, it would probably help the conclusion that the critics’ claim is absurd, so it definitely doesn’t point out a flaw in the reasoning.

(B) is out of scope _ we don’t know anything about the amount of information journalists have.

(C) is out of scope - we don’t care if the cynicism is genuine or not

(D) might explain why journalists have their cynical tendencies, but we don’t care that accurate descriptions of human behavior inevitably portray humans as selfish. As always, answer choices should be compared against the core, and (D) doesn’t have anything about our conclusion - the negative effects the cynicism has on society’s well-being.

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We’re left with (E). The commentator is overlooking the possibility that this behavior by journalists has always had a negative effect on the well-being of society. If there has always been this negative effect, the fact that journalists in the past behaved the same way can’t be used as support that the social critics’ claim is absurd.