It is Illogical to Infer a Second and Different Effect from a Cause which is known only by one Particular Effect.

Question: It is illogical to infer a second and different effect from a cause which is known only by one particular effect. This is incorrect because the inferred effect must necessarily be produced by some different characteristic of the cause than is the observed effect, which already serves entirely to describe the cause.

Which one of the following arguments makes the same logical error as the one described by the author in the passage?

(A) An anonymous donor gave a thousand dollars to our historical society. I would guess that that individual also volunteers at the children’s hospital.
(B) The radioactive material caused a genetic mutation, which, in turn, caused the birth defect. Therefore, the radioactive material caused the birth defect.
(C) The tiny, unseen atom is the source of immense power. It must be its highly complex structure that produces this power.
(D) The city orchestra received more funds from the local government this year than ever before. Clearly this administration is more civic-minded than previous ones.
(E) If I heat water, which is a liquid, it evaporates. If I heat hundreds of other liquids like water, they evaporate. Therefore, if I heat any liquid like water, it will evaporate

It is Illogical to Infer a Second and Different Effect from a Cause which is known only by one Particular Effect – is a GMAT critical reasoning topic. This GMAT Critical Reasoning topic has been taken from the book ‘ Manhattan prep GMAT Critical Reasoning 6th Edition’. In this particular topic, candidates are asked to select theoption that makes the same error as made by the author. In this question, the candidates need to provide an option that supports the error provided in the passage. GMAT critical reasoning tests the logical and analytical skills of the candidates. Critical reasoning in GMAT requires candidates to find the strengths and weaknesses of the argument, or find the logical flaw in the argument.  The GMAT CR section contains 10 -13 GMAT critical reasoning questions out of 36 GMAT verbal questions.

Answer: A
Solution and Explanation:

If we look at the passage, we know that the author is describing a logical error. Hence, in our answer choices, we will be searching for an argument that makes the error that the author describes.
It has to be the same logical error that the author has made in the passage.

Let us first look at what error the author did in the passage:
The error is laid out by the author in the first sentence of the passage: "It is illogical to infer a second and different effect from a cause which is known only by one particular effect."

Here, the author describes a single cause that is only known by a single effect -- the author has no issue with this. What the author does have a problem with is inferring a second effect to the same cause.

As an example, let's say that you know that eating too much ice cream causes an upset stomach. This is the one and only effect that we know about eating ice cream. We can't then infer that eating ice cream also causes a second effect, such as feeling jittery.

Now, we will check which answer choice infers a second effect from a single cause.

(A) An anonymous donor gave a thousand dollars to our historical society. I would guess that that individual also volunteers at the children’s hospital.- In (A), the anonymous donor known to be the "cause" of one effect: a donation of $1000 to the historical society. Then, a second effect -- volunteering at the children's hospital -- is attributed to the same cause. Since there are two logical cause, this is the same error that the author described.

So A is the correct answer. We will keep A and check other options also to confirm.

Let us take another one option to verify, since we already got the answer.

Here, the "cause" is the local government, and the "effect" is that the orchestra received more funds this year than ever before. From this, an inference is made about the cause.

(D) The city orchestra received more funds from the local government this year than ever before. Clearly this administration is more civic-minded than previous ones. - the argument in (D) makes and inference that "this administration is more civic-minded than previous ones."

This might be a logical flaw, but it's not the error that the author describes. Instead of a second effect being inferred, additional info about the cause is being inferred.

Option D doesn't make the same flaw as the author describes in the passage, so we will eliminate (D).

Since we have already got the answer as A, we will not evaluate further statements.

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