Volume II: Logical Reasoning · Chapter 18
The job: Describe It. Name the structure of the argument, or the function of one piece of it, without judging whether it is good.
Frequency: roughly 2 to 3 per section combined. Difficulty: medium.
These two question types are reporting jobs. The argument is on the page, and your task is to describe it accurately. You are not asked to strengthen it, weaken it, or find its assumption. You are asked to say, in abstract terms, what the author did and how the parts fit together. Think of yourself as a court reporter, not a judge. You record the move; you do not rule on it. They are close cousins, so we teach them together.
Method of Reasoning asks how the whole argument proceeds. It wants the technique, the structure, the play the author ran, stated in content-free language. A right answer would still be true if you swapped the topic from tax policy to coral reefs, because it describes the form of the reasoning, not the subject.
Role of a Claim, also called argument-part, zooms in. It quotes or points to one statement and asks what that statement is doing there. Is it a premise? The main conclusion? A stepping-stone conclusion the author proves on the way to a bigger one? A view the author mentions only to knock down? Your job is to label that one part by its function.
Both types belong to the Describe It job (see Chapter 7). You accept the stimulus exactly as written, add no outside information, and never grade the logic. That last point trips people up. Even when the argument is plainly flawed, a Method or Role answer that calls the flaw out is usually wrong, because describing a defect is not the structure you were asked about. Method and Flaw (Chapter 17) are mechanically the same skill; the only difference is that Flaw stems announce an error and ask you to name it, while Method stems ask for a neutral account. Read the stem so you know which job you have.
Method of Reasoning stems describe the whole technique:
Role of a Claim stems quote a piece and ask for its function:
Two look-alikes to keep straight. Flaw (Chapter 17) is Method with the verdict already in: the stem promises an error and you name it. Main Conclusion (Chapter 9) asks you to state the conclusion in different words; a Role question instead asks you to classify a quoted part, and the conclusion is often not the part being asked about. The skills overlap, because every Role question requires you to find the conclusion first.
The two types split after the first step, so follow the branch that matches your stem.
Decide which job you have. If the stem describes the whole argument’s technique, you are in Method. If the stem quotes one piece, you are in Role. Underline the quoted piece for a Role question so you do not lose track of it.
Strip the content. In one plain sentence, say what the author did, using verbs of structure, not the topic. “She gave a counterexample to a general claim.” “He drew an analogy between two situations and concluded what is true of one is true of the other.” “She cited an authority, then applied its rule to a specific case.” “He pointed out that the opposing view rests on an unproven assumption.” Ignore the subject matter entirely. The technique is the answer. In everyday terms, this is how you would describe a magic trick by its method: the magician forces your choice, misdirects your eyes, then reveals the object, and that description holds whether the prop is a card or a coin. Name the moves, not the props. The Method answer names the moves.
This is non-negotiable and it is where most Role questions are won or lost. Use the Therefore Test from Chapter 2 to nail down the author’s main conclusion before you do anything else. Then locate the quoted claim relative to that conclusion and ask what it is doing. Run through the menu of roles:
Sub-label the conclusion too when you can: is it a prediction, a proposal or recommendation, an explanation, or a plain opinion? The abstract answer choices often hinge on this sub-label.
This is the universal verifier for both types, and it is strict. Every word of the answer must match something that actually happened in the stimulus. Read the answer choice clause by clause and point to the exact text that makes each clause true. If any clause describes a move the author did not make, the answer is dead, no matter how good the rest of it sounds. A Method or Role answer is a factual claim about the passage, and a single false clause makes the whole claim false.
Most wrong answers are accurate for a phrase or two, then slip in one false clause. Do not reward a strong opening. Hunt for the word or phrase that does not correspond to the text and cut the answer on it. Read all five (see Chapter 7); the credited answer is the only one where every clause survives the point-to-it test.
Historian: A popular account holds that the coastal city of Maren declined in the third century because its harbor silted up, cutting off the sea trade on which its wealth depended. But tax records from the period show that Maren’s shipping revenues actually rose steadily through the third century. The true cause of Maren’s decline must therefore lie elsewhere. The most likely candidate is the collapse of the inland road network, which severed Maren from the farming towns that supplied its markets.
Stem: The claim that Maren’s shipping revenues rose steadily through the third century plays which one of the following roles in the historian’s argument?
Walk through the method.
Step 1: the stem quotes one piece (“shipping revenues rose steadily”), so this is a Role question. Underline that claim.
Step 2B: find the main conclusion first. Run the Therefore Test. The historian’s final point is that the true cause of Maren’s decline lies elsewhere, namely the collapse of the inland road network. The structure is: a popular account is stated (silting cut off sea trade), then the historian gives a fact (revenues rose) that contradicts it, then concludes the real cause is something else (the roads).
Now place the quoted claim. The rising-revenues fact is the evidence the historian uses to knock down the popular account. If sea trade had been cut off, revenues would have fallen; they rose, so the silting story fails. That makes this claim a premise, specifically evidence deployed against a competing explanation. Prephrase: “it is support used to reject the rival theory.”
Step 3 and 4, run the point-to-it test on each choice.
(B) is correct. Point to it: the popular account is the competing explanation, the historian rejects it (“the true cause must lie elsewhere”), and the rising-revenues fact is exactly the evidence that does the rejecting. Every clause matches the text.
(A) is wrong. This reverses the structure. The main conclusion is that the cause lies elsewhere (the roads), not that revenues rose. The revenues claim is support, not the final point. This is the classic trap of correctly sensing the claim is important while misidentifying which part is the conclusion.
(C) is wrong. Point to the word “principle.” A principle is a broad general rule. “Revenues rose steadily through the third century” is a specific factual finding about one city, not a general rule, and nothing is deduced from it in the formal sense. The clause describes a move that did not happen.
(D) is wrong. This is half-right then false. The claim does bear on the popular account, but the popular account does not depend on rising revenues; it depends on the opposite, that trade was cut off. The revenues fact undercuts that account, it is not an assumption holding it up. The answer reverses the relationship.
(E) is wrong. The historian’s proposed explanation is the road collapse, not the revenue figure. This answer mislabels a premise as the conclusion, and points to the wrong content besides.
The credited answer is (B).
For each item, identify the answer and, on a Role item, state the main conclusion before you classify the quoted part. Answers follow.
1. (Method) Critic: Defenders of the new zoning law claim it will lower housing costs by allowing taller buildings. But the same defenders concede that construction of these buildings will take at least a decade. Whatever the law’s eventual effect, then, it cannot relieve the housing shortage families face today.
The critic’s argument proceeds by:
2. (Role) Nutritionist: Many people believe that skipping breakfast leads to weight gain. It is true that breakfast-skippers weigh more on average than breakfast-eaters. But people who skip breakfast tend to have more irregular schedules overall, and irregular schedules independently encourage overeating later in the day. So the link between skipping breakfast and weight gain is probably not a direct one.
The claim that breakfast-skippers weigh more on average than breakfast-eaters plays which role?
3. (Role) Economist: A higher minimum wage would raise the incomes of low-wage workers who keep their jobs. Since workers who keep their jobs spend more when their incomes rise, local businesses would see increased demand. Increased demand, in turn, tends to spur hiring. So a higher minimum wage could, on balance, increase rather than reduce local employment.
The statement that workers who keep their jobs spend more when their incomes rise plays which role?
4. (Method) Engineer: Critics of the bridge design argue that it has never been tested under extreme wind loads. But every component of the design has been individually certified to withstand winds well above any the region has recorded. The critics’ objection, therefore, gives us no real reason for concern.
The engineer responds to the critics by:
1. (B). The critic grants the defenders’ own claim (the buildings take a decade) and argues it is beside the point for today’s families. That is conceding a point and arguing irrelevance to a specific concern. (A) names a move (attacking motives) that did not happen; point to it and you cannot. (C) no general rule is countered with an instance; this is not a counterexample. (D) the defenders’ claims do not conflict; the ten-year timeline does not contradict the cost claim. (E) no authority is cited. The point-to-it test cuts every wrong choice on a clause that has no match in the text.
2. (B). Main conclusion first: the link between skipping breakfast and weight gain is probably not direct. The quoted claim (skippers weigh more on average) is a finding the nutritionist accepts as true but reinterprets, attributing the weight difference to irregular schedules rather than to breakfast itself. (A) wrong: it is not the conclusion, it is the data being explained away; this is the right-role-wrong-conclusion trap. (C) reversed: the conclusion does not depend on this finding, it pushes back against the usual reading of it. (D) it is a specific statistical finding, not a general principle; exaggerated in scope. (E) it is not offered to prove the schedules-overeating link; that link is stated separately as its own premise. Calling this evidence for that claim points the support arrow the wrong way.
3. (B). Main conclusion: a higher minimum wage could increase local employment. The chain is: incomes rise, so spending rises, so demand rises (an intermediate conclusion), so hiring rises, so employment could increase. The quoted claim (workers spend more when incomes rise) is a premise feeding the intermediate conclusion that demand would increase. (A) wrong: it is not the final point; the employment claim is. (C) wrong: the economist relies on this claim, does not argue against it; reversed direction. (D) wrong: it carries real logical weight in the chain, it is not inert background. (E) wrong: the claim is stated, not an unstated assumption, and the argument does defend its steps. The intermediate-conclusion structure is exactly the high-value pattern to recognize here.
4. (B). The critics demand a property of the whole bridge (tested under extreme wind), and the engineer answers that each component has been certified to withstand such winds. That is establishing for the parts what was demanded of the whole. (Notice this reasoning is arguably flawed, a part-to-whole leap, but Method asks only what the move was, not whether it was sound. Do not pick an answer just because it flags the flaw.) (A) nothing is conceded and no opposite conclusion is drawn from the critics’ claim. (C) the critics’ qualifications are never questioned. (D) no historical example of another bridge is given. (E) no contradiction in the objection is shown. Each wrong choice fails the point-to-it test on a move that never occurred.
Put it to work: drill Method of Argument and Role questions in the practice platform, free during early access, with every answer choice explained.
