GMA GMA Critical Thinking and Assumptions 2 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: Evidence: 'Ice cream sales and drowning incidents both increase in summer.' What is the most logical interpretation?
- Ice cream causes drowning
- Drowning causes ice cream sales to rise
- Both are caused by hot weather increasing outdoor activity (Correct answer)
- The data is coincidental and meaningless
Correct answer: Both are caused by hot weather increasing outdoor activity
Both trends share a common cause — summer heat — which increases both swimming and ice cream consumption; this is correlation, not causation.
Question 2: Claim: 'Since crime dropped after the new police chief took office, the chief's policies are working.' Which reasoning error does this argument make?
- Overgeneralization
- Post hoc ergo propter hoc (assuming causation from sequence) (Correct answer)
- False dilemma
- Ad hominem
Correct answer: Post hoc ergo propter hoc (assuming causation from sequence)
Assuming that because crime dropped after the chief arrived, the chief caused the drop, is a post hoc fallacy — other factors may be responsible.
Question 3: Argument: 'Either we cut the budget or we raise taxes; we cannot cut the budget, so we must raise taxes.' This is an example of:
- False analogy
- Valid disjunctive syllogism (Correct answer)
- Circular reasoning
- Hasty generalization
Correct answer: Valid disjunctive syllogism
This is a valid disjunctive syllogism: given A or B, and not A, therefore B.
Question 4: Passage: 'All of our top-performing sales reps attended the new training. Therefore, anyone who attends the training will become a top performer.' The flaw in this reasoning is:
- The training might be costly
- Correlation is confused with causation, and selection bias is present (Correct answer)
- Top performers are rare
- Training programs are generally effective
Correct answer: Correlation is confused with causation, and selection bias is present
The top performers may have attended training because they were already high achievers; the argument confuses correlation with causation and ignores selection bias.
Question 5: Statement: 'We should not invest in renewable energy because it is more expensive than fossil fuels today.' Which counter-argument most directly weakens this?
- Renewable energy is environmentally friendly
- Renewable energy costs have dropped 70% in the past decade and are projected to fall further (Correct answer)
- Other countries invest in renewables
- Fossil fuels cause pollution
Correct answer: Renewable energy costs have dropped 70% in the past decade and are projected to fall further
Showing that renewable energy costs are rapidly declining directly challenges the premise that it is costlier and undermines the argument.
Question 6: Which of the following is an unstated assumption in the argument: 'We should advertise on social media because young people use it constantly'?
- Social media advertising is free
- Our target customers are young people (Correct answer)
- Young people never watch television
- Social media is the only effective advertising channel
Correct answer: Our target customers are young people
The argument only makes sense if the company's target market is young people; otherwise, their heavy social media use is irrelevant.
GMA GMA Critical Thinking and Assumptions 2
Evidence: 'Ice cream sales and drowning incidents both increase in summer.' What is the most logical interpretation?