3 Critical Reasoning Problems

1. Civil trials often involve great complexities that are beyond the capacities of jurors to understand. As a result, jurors' decisions in such trials are frequently incorrect. Justice would therefore be better served if the more complex trials were decided by judges rather than juries.
The argument above depends on which of the following assumptions?
(A) A majority of civil trials involve complexities that jurors are not capable of understanding.
(B) The judges who would decide complex civil trials would be better able to understand the complexities of those trials than jurors are.
(C) The judges who would preside over civil trials would disallow the most complex sorts of evidence from being introduced into those trials.
(D) Jurors' decisions are frequently incorrect even in those civil trials that do not involve great complexities.
(E) The sole reason in favor of having juries decide civil trials is the supposition that their decisions will almost always be correct.

SOLUTION:
(A) The given info includes the words “often” and “frequently”. The argument does NOT depend on “the majority”.
(B) is the correct solution.
(C ) is beyond the scope of the argument.
(D) is irrelevant to the argument, which is concerned only with complex cases.
(E) Supposition about juries’ decisions is beyond the scope of the question.



2. The only purpose for which a particular type of tape is needed is to hold certain surgical wounds closed for ten days-the maximum time such wounds need tape. Newtape is a new brand of this type of tape. Newtape's salespeople claim that Newtape will improve healing because Newtape adheres twice as long as the currently used tape does.

Which of the following statements, if true, would most seriously call into question the claim made by Newtape's salespeople?
(A) Most surgical wounds take about ten days to heal.
(B) Most surgical tape is purchased by hospitals and clinics rather than by individual surgeons.
(C) The currently used tape's adhesiveness is more than sufficient to hold wounds closed for ten days.
(D) Neither Newtape nor the currently used tape adheres well to skin that has not been cleaned.
(E) Newtape's adhesion to skin that has been coated with a special chemical preparation is only half as good as the currently used tape's adhesion to such coated skin.

SOLUTION:
(A) It is definitively stated that the maximum time wounds need tape is ten days, so it is irrelevant that most wounds take ten days to heal.
(B) Who is responsible for buying the tape is irrelevant to the claim.
(C ) is the solution
(D) Whether skin has been cleaned is irrelevant to the claim.
(E) The quality of the adhesion/stickiness is not relevant.


3. Demographers doing research for an international economics newsletter claim that the average per capita income in the country of Kuptala is substantially lower than that in the country of Bahlton. They also claim, however, that whereas poverty is relatively rare in Kuptala, over half the population of Bahlton lives in extreme poverty. At least one of the demographers' claims must, therefore, be wrong.

The argument above is most vulnerable to which of the following criticisms?
(A) It rejects an empirical claim about the average per capita incomes in the two countries without making any attempt to discredit that claim by offering additional economic evidence.
(B) It treats the vague term "poverty" as though it had a precise and universally accepted meaning.
(C) It overlooks the possibility that the number of people in the two countries who live in poverty could be the same even though the percentages of the two populations that live in poverty differ markedly.
(D) It fails to show that wealth and poverty have the same social significance in Kuptala as in Bahlton.
(E) It does not consider the possibility that incomes in Kuptala, unlike those in Bahlton, might all be very close to the country's average per capita income.

SOLUTION:
(A) Additional evidence would not be required if
(B) As long as the usage of “poverty” is consistently applied in the cases of Kuptala and Bahlton, there is no need to worry about its meaning being universally accepted.
(C) No, this criticism does not impact the argument because neither claim is about actual numbers.
(D) Social significance is irrelevant as a criticism.
(E) is the solution. Consider the distribution of incomes. In Kuptala, most could be near the mean, but in Bahlton, there are many below the mean and some far above the mean.