Chapter 01 Don’t Believe Everything You Think Answer Key
Short Answer Questions
1.
Determine whether the following passage is (or contains) an argument.
Will a beverage begin to cool more quickly in the freezer or in the regular part of the
refrigerator? Well, of
course
it’ll cool faster in the freezer! There are lots of people who
don’t understand anything at all about physics and who think things may begin to cool
faster in the fridge. But they’re sadly mistaken.
No argument. Clearly, our speaker has an opinion on the subject, but no argument is given.
2.
Determine whether the following passage is (or contains) an argument.
It’s true that you can use your television set to tell when a tornado is approaching. The
reason is that tornadoes make an electrical disturbance in the 55 megahertz range, which
is close to the band assigned to channel 2. If you know how to do it, you can get your set
to pick up the current given off by the twister. So your television set can be your warning
device that tells you when to dive for the cellar.
—Adapted from Cecil Adams,
The Straight Dope
This passage might be taken as an explanation, but it is also an argument, since it is
clearly designed to convince us that its main point is correct.
3.
Determine whether the following passage is (or contains) an argument.
Some of these guys who do Elvis Presley imitations actually pay more for their outfits than
Elvis paid for his! Anybody who would spend thousands just so he can spend a few
minutes not fooling anybody into thinking he’s Elvis is nuts.
No argument. No connection is made between the cost of the outfits and the psychological
deficiencies of Elvis impersonators.
4.
Determine whether the following passage is (or contains) an argument.
“The argument advanced at a recent government hearing—that because we will not be
dependent on plutonium for more than a few hundred years it ‘will not be an important
problem indefinitely’—entirely misses the point. Though we may rely on plutonium for only
a relatively brief period, the plutonium produced during that period may be with us
indefinitely, and it may jeopardize the lives of many times the number of generations that
profit from its use.”
—Ronald M. Green, “International Justice and Environmental Responsibility”
Argument.
5.
Determine whether the following passage is (or contains) an argument.
“Gene splicing is the most awesome and powerful skill acquired by man since the splitting
of the atom. If pursued humanistically, its potential to serve humanity is enormous. We will
use it to synthesize expensive natural products—interferon, substances such as insulin,
and human endorphins that serve as natural painkillers. We will be able to create a second
‘green revolution’ in agriculture to produce new high-yield, disease-resistant, self-
fertilizing crops. Gene splicing has the potential to synthesize new substances we can
substitute for oil, coal, and other raw materials—keys to a self-sustaining society.”
—John Naisbitt,
Megatrends
6.
Determine whether the following passage is (or contains) an argument.
Computers will never be able to converse intelligently through speech. A simple example
proves that this is so. The sentences “How do you recognize speech?” and “How do you
wreck a nice beach?” sound just the same when they are spoken, but they mean
something different. A computer could not distinguish the two.
Argument.
7.
Determine whether the following passage is (or contains) an argument.
You’d better not pet that dog. She looks friendly, but she’s been known to bite.
Argument.
8.
Determine whether the following passage is (or contains) an argument.
It is obvious why some men have trouble understanding why women become upset over
pornography. Pornography depicts women as servants or slaves, and men cannot conceive
of themselves in this role.
Argument.
9.
Determine whether the following passage is (or contains) an argument.
I don’t care how well Thompson played last week. If he misses practice one more time,
he’s not going to play in the tournament, and that’s that.
No argument. The speaker is only making a firm claim, not supporting it with reasons.
10.
Determine whether the following passage is (or contains) an argument.
Except maybe for finance and business law, schools of business really don’t have very
much of their own subject matter to teach to students. All the rest is really mathematics,
psychology, English, speech, and other standard subjects that business schools call by
other names.
Argument.
11.
Determine whether the following passage is (or contains) an argument.
Right now there are as many as half a million military-style assault guns in the hands of
private citizens in the United States. These small, light, easy-to-handle weapons are
exemplified by the Israeli UZI, the American MAC-10 and AR-15, and the KG-99. All of
these are sophisticated weapons manufactured for the single purpose of killing human
beings in large numbers very quickly.
12.
Determine whether the following passage is (or contains) an argument.
“It is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied; better to be Socrates
dissatisfied than a fool satisfied. And if the fool, or the pig, are of a different opinion, it is
because they only know their own side of the question.”
—John Stuart Mill, Utilitarianism
No argument.
13.
Determine whether the following passage is (or contains) an argument.
“The personal computer revolution is marked by accidental discoveries. The entire market
for these things was a big surprise to all the pioneers who put simple ads in hobbyist
magazines and were stunned by an onslaught of eager customers.”
—John C. Dvorak
No argument.
14.
Determine whether the following passage is (or contains) an argument.
“The main danger of war, even of a war fought with conventional weapons, lies in its
unpredictability.”
—Anatoly Gromyko, “Security for All in the Nuclear Age,” in
Breakthrough
15.
Determine whether the following passage is (or contains) an argument.
“The recent failure of a Drake University student to halt his former girlfriend’s plan for an
abortion focuses light on a seldom considered situation: While a woman’s right to an
abortion should not be weakened, the idea of ‘fathers’ rights’ raised in this case should be
discussed.”
—The Daily Iowan
No argument.
16.
Determine whether the following passage is (or contains) an argument.
“If American business is to regain an advantageous position in the international
marketplace, it must recreate a climate of flexibility and entrepreneurship. Unfortunately,
the trend is to seek personal success not through entrepreneurship but through
professionalism, as a continued climb in the number of advanced degrees in business and
law confirms. If this tendency to seek personal security and prestige by joining the ranks
of the professionally comfortable continues, the real winners will be America’s overseas
competitors.”
—Irving Greenberg
17.
Determine whether the following passage is (or contains) an argument.
Some would prefer to say that every human being is both a body and a mind. Bodies are in
space and subject to the mechanical laws that govern all other bodies in space. But minds
are not in space, nor are their operations subject to mechanical laws. Bodily processes
and states can be inspected by external observers, but the workings of one mind are not
witnessable by other observers. And so a person lives through two collateral histories; but
the actual transactions between the episodes of the private history and those of the public
history remain mysterious, since by definition they can belong to neither series.
—Adapted from Gilbert Ryle,
The Concept of Mind
Argument.
18.
Determine whether the following passage is (or contains) an argument.
“[Lionel L.] Lewis discovered that, in recommendations of merit written by administrators
and faculty themselves, although they put much emphasis (two-thirds) upon student
related activities—teaching, advising, course planning, and popularity—no one argues
from any supporting evidence other than, ‘Everyone knows.’”
—David A. Downes, “The Merit Muddle in the University”
19.
Determine whether the following passage is (or contains) an argument.
The president has the morals of an alley cat, his critics say. Shows you what they know.
He’ll still be reelected.
No argument.
20.
Determine whether the following passage is (or contains) an argument.
“Today, there is strong evidence—not only in theory but in practice—that families who try
to protect dying children from knowing they’re dying rarely serve the child’s best interests.
This conspiracy of silence, however well-meaning, often puts nurses, relatives, and others
who spend the most time with the patient, especially in their lonely moments, on the spot.”
—Thomas Scully and Celia Scully,
Playing God: The New World of Medical Choices
Argument.
21.
Determine whether the following passage is (or contains) an argument.
“The Federal Reserve Board is normally the Stealth bomber of government agencies,
zooming in without warning to raise or lower interest rates and confirming weeks later
what action was taken. But last Friday, in an extraordinary pre-emptive strike against a
possible surge of inflation, the Federal Reserve Chairman declared that the Central Bank
had raised short-term rates that very day.”
No argument.
22.
Identify each speaker that gives an argument for his or her position in the following
passage.
Larry: Before we go to Hawaii, let’s go to a tanning salon and get a tan. Then we won’t
look like we just got off the plane, plus we won’t get sunburned while we’re over there.
Laurie: I don’t know . . . I read that those places can be dangerous. And did you ever check
out how much they cost? Let’s let it go.
Larry and Laurie are both giving arguments.
23.
Identify each speaker that gives an argument for his or her position in the following
passage.
Student A: My family is very conservative. I don’t think they’d like it if they found out that I
was sharing an apartment with two males.
Student B: But sooner or later you have to start living your own life.
Both A and B are giving arguments. B is arguing for an unstated claim: You should share
the apartment with the two males despite what your family would like.
24.
Identify each speaker that gives an argument for his or her position in the following
passage.
Insurance Exec: Insurance costs so much because accident victims hire you lawyers to
take us insurers to court and soak us for all we’re worth. There should be limits on the
amounts insurance companies may be required to pay out on claims.
Attorney: Limits? Doesn’t sound like a good idea to me. What if someone’s medical
expenses exceed those limits? Do we just say, “Sorry, Charlie?”
Only Attorney is giving an argument.
25.
Identify each speaker that gives an argument for his or her position in the following
passage.
Republican: If taxes absolutely must be raised, raise the sales tax. Raising taxes on
corporations or income taxes just drives businesses out of state, and that’s bad for the
economy. The net result is less tax revenue for government.
Democrat: If you raise the sales tax, people buy less, and that’s even worse for the
economy. Besides, the sales tax hits poor people the hardest, and they are the ones who
least can afford a tax hike.
Both parties are giving arguments.
26.
Identify each speaker that gives an argument for his or her position in the following
passage.
First Citizen: There has been a lot of talk in favor of having civilian police-review boards
monitor law enforcement activities. That’s better than letting internal-affairs units try to do
that job.
Second Citizen: Right. The ethics of law enforcers is as important as the ethics of
lawmakers. Letting them police themselves is like having the foxes guard the henhouse.
27.
Identify each speaker that gives an argument for his or her position in the following
passage.
She: When you think about it, there’s every reason why women soldiers shouldn’t serve in
combat.
He: Well, I don’t think anyone should have to serve in combat. I wouldn’t make anyone
serve who doesn’t want to.
Neither speaker is giving an argument.
28.
Identify each speaker that gives an argument for her position in the following passage.
Mother: If you are looking for a wise investment, try real estate. The price of housing has
always risen faster than the rate of inflation.
Daughter: Maybe, but I’m skeptical. What’s risen faster than the rate of inflation is the
cost of land, not the cost of the structures put on it. Since the population isn’t growing and
the demand for land is declining, real estate may not be such a great investment any
more.
Both parties are giving arguments.
29.
Identify each speaker that gives an argument for his position in the following passage.
Father: The governor should reduce government spending before he starts increasing
taxes. Taxes just reduce our incomes, and there is plenty of waste in government. For
example, a fire department doesn’t need a chief, an assistant chief, and a captain. All it
needs is one administrator and however many firefighters.
Son: Who takes charge if the administrator is sick or injured?
Both parties are giving arguments. Son is arguing against the claim that a fire department
needs only one administrator.
30.
Identify each speaker that gives an argument for his or her position in the following
passage.
Terry: You don’t need to spend a lot of money on a home stereo system. Just buy a good
car stereo. They’re just as good as home stereos, and they’re cheaper. All you need is an
AC to DC power converter, and you’re in business.
Larry: Fine, except who says a car stereo is cheaper? Car speakers cost more than home
speakers. Also, it isn’t exactly cheap to replace your car system if it gets stolen, as often
happens.
Both parties are giving arguments.
31.
Identify each speaker that gives an argument for his or her position in the following
passage.
Worried Athletic Supporter: I’m particularly concerned with the proposed cuts in the
university athletic program. If something has to be cut, let’s start with something like
dance or basket weaving.
Unworried Athletic Supporter: Oh, don’t worry. The university isn’t going to kill its cash
cow. A strong athletic program is good publicity and brings in lots of contributions. The
trustees aren’t going to let anything happen to a first-rate program like ours.
Only the second party is giving an argument.
32.
Identify each speaker that gives an argument for his or her position in the following
passage.
First Manager: I think it is time to change our policy on return items. From now on, let’s
just give customers their money back, no questions asked.
Second Manager: Frankly, I don’t think that will be such a good policy. Why, just last week
you yourself said we should ask people why they want to return things.
Neither party gives an argument.
33.
Determine whether the following passage contains an argument and, if it does, identify
that argument’s final conclusion.
“I seriously doubt many people want to connect up their TV to the Internet. For one thing,
when people watch TV they don’t want more information. For another thing, even if they
did, they wouldn’t be interested in having to do something to get it. They just want to sit
back and let the TV tell them what’s happening.”
Argument. Conclusion: It is doubtful many people want to connect their TV to the Internet.
34.
Determine whether the following passage contains an argument and, if it does, identify
that argument’s final conclusion.
“Here’s how you make chocolate milk. Warm up a cup of milk in the microwave for two
minutes, then add two tablespoons of the chocolate. Stir it up, then stick it back in the
microwave for another 30 seconds. Then enjoy it.”
No argument.
35.
Determine whether the following passage contains an argument and, if it does, identify
that argument’s final conclusion.
“The P/E ratio is the number of dollars of stock you have to buy to get one dollar of profit.
Any stock with a ratio greater than 15:1 is overpriced. That’s why it’s not a good idea to
invest in stocks right now. P/E ratios are way too high.”
Argument. Conclusion: It’s not a good idea to invest in stocks right now.
36.
Determine whether the following passage contains an argument and, if it does, identify
that argument’s final conclusion.
“Your jacket looks a little tattered, there, Houston. Time to get a new one, I’d say.”
Argument. Conclusion: Time to get a new jacket.
37.
Determine whether the following passage contains an argument and, if it does, identify
that argument’s final conclusion.
“Should I go to class today? We’re probably just going over the test; I can afford to miss
that. Besides, I haven’t cut a single class all semester. I guess it won’t hurt to stay home
this once.”
38.
Determine whether the following passage contains an argument and, if it does, identify
that argument’s final conclusion.
“You’ve got every reason to add another telephone line, despite the cost. The way it is
now, you tie up your phone for hours while you’re on your computer. If people need to
reach you in an emergency, they can’t do it.”
Argument. Conclusion: You’ve got every reason to add another telephone line.
39.
Determine whether the following passage contains an argument and, if it does, identify
that argument’s final conclusion.
“Pretzels are pretty good for a snack food. But it’s wise to keep in mind that they are high
in sodium, at least if you eat the salted kind.”
No argument.
40.
Determine whether the following passage contains an argument and, if it does, identify
that argument’s final conclusion.
“Can you believe it? Tight-fitting polyester clothes are making a comeback. They’ve even
brought back bell-bottoms. Next thing you know, the professors around here will be
dragging out their leisure suits.”
41.
Determine whether the following passage contains an argument and, if it does, identify
that argument’s final conclusion.
“You should stop doing that; it’s hurting him.”
Argument. Conclusion: You should stop doing that.
42.
Determine whether the following passage contains an argument and, if it does, identify
that argument’s final conclusion.
“The reason nobody buys sports cars anymore is because everyone wants a sports utility
vehicle with four-wheel drive. But people will start buying sports cars again sooner or
later; just watch and see.”
No argument.
43.
Determine whether the following passage contains an argument and, if it does, identify
that argument’s final conclusion.
“People who drive SUVs with American flags flying from them are just pretending to be
patriots. The real patriots are people who drive cars that get decent mileage, since that
actually accomplishes something—it lessons our dependence on foreign oil.”
Argument. Conclusion: People who drive cars that get good mileage are patriots.
44.
Determine whether the following passage contains an argument; if it does, identify the
main issue.
TV’s coverage of the Olympics was not very exciting. The anchorman was cool and
detached, and, except for basketball, they never zeroed in on a single event long enough
for anyone to care. Plus, there was just too much coverage. Anytime you turned on TV,
there was the Olympics. It was like air—always there. And what’s so exciting about air?
Argument. Issue: whether TV’s coverage of the Olympics was exciting.
45.
Determine whether the following passage contains an argument; if it does, identify the
main issue.
It’s wise to let states deny AFDC (Aid to Families with Dependent Children) benefits to
unmarried kids under eighteen who live away from their parents. This would discourage
thousands of these kids from having children of their own in order to get state-subsidized
apartments.
Argument. Issue: whether states should be allowed to deny AFDC benefits to youths under
eighteen.