呵呵,不好意思, 每天都会贴一篇差不多一莫一样的文章出来献丑. 不过不到考试的那天,实在不能自我满足. 请大家容忍一下,再提提意见吧. 多谢!
A10. The following appeared in a memo from the vice president in charge of fundraising at Waymarsh University:
“Three years ago, as part of a very successful campaign to increase the amount of money donated for scholarships, Sophia College used student volunteers to telephone selected alumni and request contributions. That year the total amount of money donated to Sophia exceeded its annual goal by 150%. To reduce overhead costs for fundraising and increase contributions, Waymarsh University should begin using student volunteers to make telephone requests in all our fundraising efforts. Furthermore, since the enrollment at Waymarsh University is more than twice that at Sophia College, we should be able to raise at least as much money each year as Sophia did by using this same method.”
In this argument, the author reaches a conclusion that Waymarsh University (WU) should begin using student volunteers to make telephone requests in the fundraising efforts. To buttress his argument, the author contends that this method will be successful because the Sophia College (SC) achieved its success by using this method three years ago. Furthermore, the author predicts that the funding to be collected will be at least as much as that of SC because WU has more enrollments. At the first glance, the reasons cited by the author are somewhat plausible, but a closer examination will reveal how groundless it is. The argument has several flaws as follows.
First, the author commits a fallacy of false analogy. The author falsely assumes that WU are analogous to SC in all aspects. However, that is not necessarily the case. For instance, SC might be a business school whose alumni are all prominent executives in well-known enterprises. They have much fund to donate to SC. While, WU is a technical school, whose alumni are on the position of technical staffs, which has less money to donate. Without considering the difference between WU and SC, it is not proper to conclude that WU will achieve the same success in fundraising.
Second, the author based his conclusion on all things are equal. The successful case of SC occurred three years ago. Yet, there will many changes during the three years. For example, the country has just suffered from a drastic economic slowdown. Most of the alumni can even not recover from their own business, let alone donating money to the school. Unless the author could provide sufficient evidence that the current situation keeps unchanged as it used to be, the conclusion is groundless.
Third, the author establishes a casual relationship without sufficient evidence. The author contends that because the enrollment of WU is more than twice that a SC, WU can raise at least as much money each year as Sophia did. However, the increase of enrollment and the rise of fundraising are just positively related. Many other factors, such as the money each person donates, the relationship between the alumni and the school should also be considered. Without ruling out other factors, it is not reasonable to conclude that more enrollments leads to more raise funding.
To sum, the author's argument is not convincing and persuasive unless he can make it clear in the following aspects. 1) WU is analogous to SC in all the aspects. 2) The current situation remains unchanged as it used to be. 3) Increase of fundraising is only decided by the increase of enrollment.
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