Final Practice
Sessions 10–13 · 68 items with answers
Write your answer and your reason before you open a box.
A correct label with the wrong reason is the most common way to pass practice and fail the paper. If you cannot say why, you have not answered the item.
These are not the exam items. Each is parallel in form to a real question but different in content. Scope is Sessions 10–13 only.
Part A — Name P2’s move (16 items)
Eight moves, two items each: straw man · red herring · slippery slope · equivocation · false dilemma · appeal to fear · appeal to pity · bandwagon. On the paper each is used exactly once, and P1’s line is context only — it is never the answer. No reason is required. The name is the whole answer.
A1. P1: We should look again at how much homework we assign. P2: So you think students should get no homework at all.
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straw man — Answers a weaker claim nobody made.
A2. P1: I think the bus route needs rethinking. P2: So you want to cancel public transport altogether.
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straw man — Rethinking a route is restated as abolishing transport.
A3. P1: Why has the library been shut for three months? P2: The librarians in this building work harder than anyone I know.
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red herring — The praise is true and beside the question asked.
A4. P1: Did the contractor finish the roof on time? P2: That contractor has employed people from this town for twenty years.
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red herring — Local employment is real and irrelevant to the roof.
A5. P1: The school wants to allow phones during breaks. P2: First it is breaks, then it is classes, then nobody reads a book, then the whole generation cannot concentrate.
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slippery slope — Four steps asserted, not one of them defended.
A6. P1: Should we let one student retake the test? P2: If one retakes it, soon everyone will, then the test means nothing, and then the degree is worthless.
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slippery slope — A chain ending in disaster, with no link argued.
A7. P1: Can gravity be broken? P2: Gravity is a law, and laws can be broken, so gravity can be broken.
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equivocation — Law as a regularity of nature, then as a statute.
A8. P1: Is the app free? P2: It is free software, and free means you pay nothing, so it costs nothing.
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equivocation — Free as “unrestricted”, then as “costing nothing”.
A9. P1: I am not sure raising the fee is the answer. P2: Either we raise the fee or we close the laboratory.
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false dilemma — A third option — cut costs elsewhere — never appears.
A10. P1: Should the museum open on Mondays? P2: Either we open on Mondays or this city does not care about art.
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false dilemma — Opening hours and caring about art are not the only two.
A11. P1: The security contract comes up for renewal on Friday. P2: Imagine the phone call telling you your daughter was hurt on that campus.
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appeal to fear — A feeling offered in place of a case. No chain of steps.
A12. P1: Why should the council approve the plant? P2: Picture yourself explaining to your children why the factory closed.
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appeal to fear — Dread supplied where a reason was asked for.
A13. P1: Your essay is two weeks late. P2: I have been working nights to pay for my sister’s treatment. Please accept it.
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appeal to pity — The hardship is real and says nothing about the deadline.
A14. P1: The tenant has not paid rent for five months. P2: She is seventy-one and has nowhere else to go.
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appeal to pity — Her situation is real and does not bear on the rent.
A15. P1: Should we adopt the new grading software? P2: Almost every university in the country already uses it.
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bandwagon — Who else adopted it, in place of a reason.
A16. P1: Is this diet worth trying? P2: Eight million people are already on it.
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bandwagon — Popularity is not evidence that it works.
Teaching note — reveals answers
Teaching note: A7 and A8 are the equivocations, and they are the ones students over-apply. The word has to carry two senses, and the argument has to need them to be one — law as a regularity of nature against law as a statute, free as “unrestricted” against free as “costing nothing”. If the word means the same thing throughout, whatever else is wrong, it is not equivocation.
Teaching note — reveals answers
The other reliable confusion is A11/A12 against A5/A6. Fear and the slope both end somewhere bad. The slope claims a chain of steps; the appeal to fear only gives you the feeling and stops.
Teaching note — reveals answers
Also accept: strawman or man of straw · changing the subject or diversion · domino argument · false dichotomy or either/or · scare tactics · appeal to sympathy · appeal to popularity or ad populum.
Part C — Which appeal, and is it grounded? (15 items)
Five of each appeal. The one test for all three: does it hand you something you could go and check? A record, a number, a plan, a place to look — grounded. A feeling, or a name, and an invitation to stop there — ungrounded. On the paper the two labels score together, and a sentence of reason is required.
One warning about that test: checkable is not the same as relevant. “I have taught this course for twenty years” is perfectly checkable and still ungrounded, because nothing in it bears on the claim being argued. Grounded means it hands you something you could check about the claim.
C1. “You can take my word on this: I have treated this condition for eleven years, and the hospital’s staff register lists my specialist number and every one of those years.”
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ethos · grounded — Offers herself as the reason, then hands you the means of checking her.
C2. “I am a doctor, so you can take my word on the tax reform.”
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ethos · ungrounded — Real standing, borrowed into a field it does not cover.
C3. “Do not take my word for it: the register of certified auditors is on the ministry’s website and my name is on page four.”
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ethos · grounded — Names exactly where to go and check her standing.
C4. “Everyone in this department respects me. That should be enough.”
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ethos · ungrounded — Standing offered in place of grounds.
C5. “You cannot judge the plan — you have never run a business.”
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ethos · ungrounded — Checkable about the man, and nothing to do with the plan.
C6. “Think of the children who will grow up here. Now vote.”
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pathos · ungrounded — The feeling does all the work; nothing to check.
C7. “The night shelter turned away sixty people in January. Here is what a second shelter would cost and where it would go.”
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pathos · grounded — Real feeling, arriving attached to a specific proposal.
C8. “If you have ever been afraid walking home, you know why we need this.”
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pathos · ungrounded — Your own fear is offered as the argument.
C9. “I have watched parents sit all night in that corridor because there was no bed. Here are the hospital’s admission numbers and its request for six more.”
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pathos · grounded — The feeling opens the door; the numbers and the request are checkable.
C10. “Are you really going to look away from this?”
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pathos · ungrounded — A dare, with no claim inside it.
C11. “Studies show our method works.”
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logos · ungrounded — The shape of evidence with none in it — which studies?
C12. “The route costs 4.2 million pesos a year and carries 900 passengers a day — 12.8 pesos a trip. Check the arithmetic.”
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logos · grounded — Reasons you can follow, step by step, and test.
C13. “The numbers speak for themselves.”
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logos · ungrounded — No numbers are given; the phrase is doing the work.
C14. “Nine of the twelve schools that joined raised attendance. Here is the table, school by school.”
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logos · grounded — A count, plus where to go and check it.
C15. “It is a well-known fact that this policy failed elsewhere.”
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logos · ungrounded — Well-known names no source and no place.
Teaching note — reveals answers
Teaching note: C5 is the one that catches people. Attacking the speaker is still ethos — it is an appeal about who someone is — and it is ungrounded, because nothing about the plan has been said. Students want to call it “ad hominem” and stop; the paper wants the appeal and the verdict.
Teaching note — reveals answers
Where the line falls between grounded ethos and logos. C1 and C3 hand you a way to check the speaker. If they had handed you the patient outcomes or the audit findings instead, the appeal would be logos — reasons you can check, rather than a person you can check.
Teaching note — reveals answers
Grounded does not mean true. C12’s arithmetic could be wrong and C14’s table could be faked. Grounded means it hands you something you could go and check.
Teaching note — reveals answers
Also accept: honest for grounded and counterfeit for ungrounded. The Session 12 slides use that pair; the paper uses this one; they mean the same thing.
Part E — Explain the correlation (18 items)
Session 13’s four: X causes Y · reverse causation · confounder · chance. Every item needs a reason, not only the confounders — “reverse causation” and “chance” on their own are half answers too. If the answer is a confounder, the third factor must be named. “Correlation is not causation” earns nothing at all: it names no rival.
E1. “The hospitals that took on the most extra nurses last year are treating the most patients this year. So hiring nurses attracts illness.”
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reverse causation — the rising caseload is why the nurses were hired
E2. “Firefighters are present at bigger fires. So firefighters make fires worse.”
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reverse causation — the size of the fire is why they were sent
E3. “Countries with more doctors have more people in long-term treatment. So doctors make people ill.”
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reverse causation — the burden of illness is why those countries trained the doctors
E4. “The employees sent on the most training courses go on to get the worst reviews. So training makes people worse.”
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reverse causation — a poor review is what gets you sent on the course
E5. “Students who use the library most have the lowest grades. So the library hurts them.”
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reverse causation — struggling is why they are there
E6. “Ice cream sales track drowning deaths. So ice cream causes drowning.”
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confounder — hot weather
E7. “Children with larger vocabularies run faster. So learning words makes you quick.”
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confounder — age
E8. “Homes with more books have higher-achieving children. So buying books raises achievement.”
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confounder — the parents’ income and education
E9. “People who drink more bottled water live longer. So bottled water extends life.”
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confounder — income, which buys the water and the healthcare
E10. “Cities with more churches have more bars. So religion drives people to drink.”
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confounder — the size of the city
E11. “Three lottery winners lived on one street. So that street is lucky.”
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chance — with thousands of streets, one was always going to have three
E12. “This fund beat the market four years running. So the manager has skill.”
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chance — with thousands of funds, streaks are expected
E13. “Four of the eleven people who tried the supplement slept better. So it works.”
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chance — with eleven people a split like that turns up by luck alone
E14. “An app tested forty daily habits against sleep quality. Only one matched: eating breakfast late. So late breakfast improves sleep.”
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chance — forty comparisons; one had to come out
E15. “In a randomised trial the treated group recovered faster than the placebo group. So the treatment works.”
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X causes Y — randomisation rules out the other three
E16. “Identical plants watered daily grew taller than plants left dry. So water makes plants grow.”
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X causes Y — controlled, one variable
E17. “Students randomly assigned to tutoring scored higher than those not assigned. So tutoring raises scores.”
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X causes Y — assignment was random
E18. “Half of 600 farms were chosen by lottery to get the new seed, and those farms harvested more. So the seed works.”
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X causes Y — the lottery removes the rivals
Teaching note — reveals answers
Why E15–E18 matter: they are the only four where you may read the correlation as cause, and the reason is always the same — random assignment or control removes the other three explanations at once. That sentence is what earns the mark, not the label.
Teaching note — reveals answers
Teaching note: E4 and E5 are the ones students miss. Both look like the thing causing harm when the harm is what put people there. The question to ask out loud is which came first.
Teaching note — reveals answers
Say the “causes both” sentence aloud for every confounder. Age causes a bigger vocabulary and longer legs; income buys the bottled water and the healthcare. If you cannot say that sentence, you have not found the confounder yet.
Part F — Read the study (7 vignettes)
Four questions each: Who was studied? · What was actually measured? · Compared to what? · How was the result selected? On the paper these are worth 3, 3, 4 and 4. Naming a problem is worth most of the mark; saying why it matters is worth the rest. A technical term is never required — a plain description earns full credit. Every question wants a problem named, so never answer one by saying there is nothing wrong.
F1. A newspaper runs a poll on its own website. 84% of the 12,000 readers who clicked oppose the new transport tax, and the paper reports that the city has rejected it.
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→ Who? Only people who visit that site and choose to click. Nobody sampled anyone; the readers selected themselves, and a paper’s readers are not the city.
→ What? One click on a yes/no question. Not a considered view, and nothing stops one person clicking many times.
→ Compared to what? Nothing at all — no other group, no earlier measurement. The comparison needed is a random sample of city residents asked the same question.
→ How selected? The paper ran the poll and chose to report it. A result of 51% would never have been printed.
F2. A city announces that recorded crime fell 30% in the year after a new policing plan. Reporting moved to a phone app in the same month.
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→ Who? People who report crimes — and now, people who report crimes and use the app. Not the same population before and after.
→ What? Recorded crime, not crime. Change the way of recording and the measure changes even if the world does not.
→ Compared to what? The same city a year earlier. The comparison needed is similar cities over the same year that did not change how crime is reported.
→ How selected? The city chose the year, the crime types and the moment to announce.
F3. A hospital reports that patients on its new protocol recovered two days faster than patients treated last year.
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→ Who? This year’s patients against last year’s. Who arrives at a hospital changes from year to year, and nobody assigned anyone.
→ What? Days to discharge — a decision made by staff who know which protocol the patient was on, not an independent measure of recovery.
→ Compared to what? A different year. The comparison needed is patients treated in the same period under the old protocol.
→ How selected? The hospital chose to report this outcome. What happened to readmissions?
F4. A supplement company measured twelve health outcomes and reports the one that came out significant: “reduces fatigue by 9%.”
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→ Who? Not stated — which is itself the answer. No sample is described at all.
→ What? Self-rated fatigue, the softest of the twelve outcomes and the easiest to move.
→ Compared to what? Not stated. Against a placebo, against nothing, against themselves?
→ How selected? This is the item. Twelve outcomes were tested and the best was published. One in twelve coming out is what chance produces on its own, so the 9% is the number to test next, not a finding.
F5. A university reports that students who received its scholarship graduated at a higher rate than students who did not.
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→ Who? Students who applied for and won a scholarship — selected for grades, need or motivation. They differed before a peso changed hands.
→ What? Graduation as counted by the university itself, against a requirement the university sets. Nobody independent checked it, and “graduated” hides when, and with what.
→ Compared to what? Everyone else, including students who never applied. The comparison needed is applicants who narrowly missed out.
→ How selected? The university reports on its own programme.
F6. A state health service randomly assigned 400 clinics to a new appointment system and 400 to the old one. Waiting times fell by six days in the new-system clinics, measured from state records kept the same way in both groups.
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→ Who? Eight hundred clinics assigned at random, so the two groups are alike on average before the system arrives.
→ What? Waiting time from an independent record, measured identically in both arms.
→ Compared to what? Clinics in the same period that kept the old system.
→ How selected? One outcome, fixed in advance, in a trial designed before the results existed.
F7. A ministry evaluates a job-training programme across eight regions and publishes the result for the northern region, where the effect was largest: “earnings up 14%.”
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→ Who? People who enrolled in one of eight regions — and the headline describes only one of them.
→ What? Earnings, from a source and over a window that are never named.
→ Compared to what? Not stated. Trainees against non-trainees, or against themselves the year before?
→ How selected? This is the item. Eight regions were looked at and the best was printed. The largest of eight results is what chance produces on its own, so 14% is the number to test next, not the effect of the programme.
Teaching note — reveals answers
Teaching note: F6 is sound, and students who have learned to be sceptical will invent a flaw in it. Random assignment plus an independent measure is what licenses a causal reading, and F6 has both. The skill is not finding fault everywhere; it is seeing what separates F6 from the other six.
Teaching note — reveals answers
F4 and F7 are the ones to practise most — the paper’s fourth question is about a result picked after the numbers were seen, which is what both of these test.
Teaching note — reveals answers
On funding. F4 and F5 are reported by the people who benefit. That is a reason to look harder at the method — never, on its own, a reason to conclude the finding is false. “It’s funded, so ignore it” replaces the audit with a label.
Part G — Readings (3 sets × 4 = 12 items)
Gist only. No item turns on a technical term. Each set leaves one option over, so the fourth answer cannot be had by elimination — the same shape as the paper. Part G is worth 6 points: 1.5 per reading, right or wrong, with no part marks.
The four required readings, Sessions 10–13:
| Session | Reading |
|---|---|
| 10 | Schopenhauer, The Art of Controversy |
| 11 | Institute for Propaganda Analysis, “How to Detect Propaganda” (1937) |
| 12 | Aristotle, Rhetoric, Book I, Chs. 1–2 |
| 13 | Huff, “The Sample with the Built-in Bias” |
The optional readings are not examinable and appear nowhere on the paper, not even as an option. The leftover in each set below is a topic taught in class that no assigned reading covers — so you cannot reach it by recognising a title, only by knowing what the four required readings are actually about.
None of the gists below is worded the way the paper words it. The paper phrases its options differently on purpose: matching a phrase you memorised is precisely the failure this part is built to catch. Because there are only four required readings, all three sets use the same four, and what changes is how the gist is put.
Set 1
- Schopenhauer, The Art of Controversy
____ - Institute for Propaganda Analysis (1937)
____ - Aristotle, Rhetoric I.1–2
____ - Huff, “The Sample with the Built-in Bias”
____
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- Schopenhauer, The Art of Controversy → a
- Institute for Propaganda Analysis (1937) → b
- Aristotle, Rhetoric I.1–2 → c
- Huff, “The Sample with the Built-in Bias” → d
Left over: (e) — the verbal dispute, taught in Session 10. No reading on the list covers it.
Set 2
- Huff, “The Sample with the Built-in Bias”
____ - Aristotle, Rhetoric I.1–2
____ - Schopenhauer, The Art of Controversy
____ - Institute for Propaganda Analysis (1937)
____
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- Huff, “The Sample with the Built-in Bias” → a
- Aristotle, Rhetoric I.1–2 → b
- Schopenhauer, The Art of Controversy → c
- Institute for Propaganda Analysis (1937) → d
Left over: (e) — the fallacy fallacy, taught in Session 10. No reading on the list covers it.
Set 3
- Institute for Propaganda Analysis (1937)
____ - Huff, “The Sample with the Built-in Bias”
____ - Aristotle, Rhetoric I.1–2
____ - Schopenhauer, The Art of Controversy
____
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- Institute for Propaganda Analysis (1937) → a
- Huff, “The Sample with the Built-in Bias” → b
- Aristotle, Rhetoric I.1–2 → c
- Schopenhauer, The Art of Controversy → d
Left over: (e) — the slippery slope, taught in Session 10. No reading on the list covers it.
Teaching note — reveals answers
Scoring, as on the paper: 1.5 points per reading, right or wrong, no part marks — 4 correct = 6 · 3 = 4.5 · 2 = 3 · 1 = 1.5.
Teaching note — reveals answers
Teaching note: the leftover is never a reading — it is a topic from class. That is the point: there is no title to recognise, so the only way to place the fourth reading is to know what it is about.
Teaching note — reveals answers
Exam strategy worth saying out loud: nothing is deducted for a wrong match and one option is always left over, so never leave a reading blank — and never write two letters for one reading, which scores 0 for that reading.