Jane: Professor Harper’s ideas for modifying the design of

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Jane: Professor Harper's ideas for modifying the design of guitars are of no value because there is no general agreement among musicians as to what a guitar should sound like and, consequently, no widely accepted basis for evaluating the merits of a guitar's sound.
Mark: What's more, Harper's ideas have had enough time to be adopted if they really resulted in superior sound. It took only ten years for the Torres design for guitars to be almost universally adopted because of the improvement it makes in tonal quality.

Which one of the following most accurately describes the relationship between Jane's argument and Mark's argument?
(A) Mark's argument shows how a weakness in Jane's argument can be overcome.
(B) Mark's argument has a premise in common with Jane's argument.
(C) Mark and Jane use similar techniques to argue for different conclusions.
(D) Mark's argument restates Jane's argument in other terms.
(E) Mark's argument and Jane's argument are based on conflicting suppositions.

[spoiler]OA: E; why not B/D[/spoiler]

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by albatross86 » Wed Jun 16, 2010 11:51 pm
J : H's modification ideas for the guitars have no value since there is no general criterion for determining the merit of a guitar's sound (musicians dont agree about it )

M: Additionally, H's ideas would have been adopted by now if they were a real improvement, since it took only 10 years for the T design to be universally adopted because of its improved tone.

What is the relationship between J and M's arguments?


A. This is actually a different reason and is not necessarily a weakness of Jane's argument. It only presents a new reason for why H's ideas are of no value.

B. Well the premise is actually not the same. J's premise is that "There is no general criterion for determining the merit of a guitar's sound" to reach the conclusion that "H's modifications have no value." M's premise is that "Torres took only 10 years to be adopted for the improved tone." to reach the conclusion that "H's modifications can't have value because if they did they would have been adopted". These are actually conflicting ideas, since M actually believes that Torres managed to create a universally acceptable design idea, which opposes Jane's claim that this cannot be achieved due to disagreement.

C. The conclusion is the same.

D. It's not the same argument, as we proved in B.

E. This is exactly the conclusion we arrived at from B. M and J rely on conflicting suppositions, i.e. opposite ideas.

Pick E.