Only 75 years ago, the best fishing in the world was the Grand Banks of the North Atlantic. But now…
The correct choice is: “The argument assumes that the waters off Newfoundland are representative of all the American oceans.” All the evidence in the passage comes from one…
Choose your answer
Only 75 years ago, the best fishing in the world was the Grand Banks of the North Atlantic. But now overfishing and man’s pollution have decimated the area. There will be no fishing industry in the Americas in a few years. The waters off Newfoundland now yield less than the catch of five years ago, and less than one quarter of the total of ten years ago. The cod has almost disappeared. The numbers of fishermen in Newfoundland and New England have declined, and their yearly earnings are now at an all-time low. Yet radar has made fishing methods more efficient than ever.
Which one of the following identifies most clearly a faulty assumption in the reasoning of this paragraph?
Answer and explanation
Correct answer B
The correct choice is: “The argument assumes that the waters off Newfoundland are representative of all the American oceans.”
All the evidence in the passage comes from one region, the North Atlantic (the Grand Banks, Newfoundland and New England). From this the author jumps to a conclusion about the whole continent: ‘There will be no fishing industry in the Americas in a few years.’ That leap only works if the Newfoundland waters are typical of all American fishing waters, which is an unjustified generalisation. This is the faulty assumption.
“The argument fails to consider that the decline in the catch may be due to factors other than pollution” is wrong because the passage does name another factor, overfishing. “The pollution of the sea may have been caused by natural as well as by human forces” does not affect the reasoning: whatever causes the pollution, the decline is the same. “The argument does not allow for the possibility that the catch may increase in size in the next five years” points to a possible future event, but it does not identify the hidden assumption in the reasoning as clearly as the over-generalisation does.
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