Can you spot the hole in the argument? Try three questions
Three short arguments, each with a gap. Find it, check your answer, and read why every other choice fails — the same practice tool Katalyna members use, free to try here.
The question we keep seeing
“How do I actually get better at reading arguments critically, instead of just reading more of them?”
The short answer
- Most bad arguments fail in one of a handful of ways: the evidence comes from the wrong group, the argument quietly relies on something it never says, or another cause could explain the same facts.
- You get better by naming the gap before you look at the choices, then learning why each wrong choice is wrong, not just which one is right.
- The three questions below are a free sample of Katalyna's reasoning practice: highlighter, optional timer, hints, and a full explanation for every choice.
Reading an argument closely is a skill, and like most skills it improves with deliberate practice rather than volume. The trick is to stop asking "do I agree?" and start asking three narrower questions: what is the conclusion, what is offered as evidence, and what would have to be true for the one to follow from the other?
Below are three short arguments. Each one has a gap. Try to say what it is in your own words before you read the answer choices. Then pick one, check it, and read the explanations, including the ones for the choices you didn't pick.
Spokesperson for the Brindle Valley Dairy Cooperative: Attendance at our annual meeting is optional, and this year the meeting's only scheduled event was a tour of the cooperative's new cheese plant. At the meeting, we asked the members present whether the cooperative should devote a larger share of its milk to cheese production, and 88 percent of them said yes. Clearly, most of the cooperative's members favor shifting more of our milk to cheese.
The reasoning in the spokesperson's argument is most vulnerable to criticism on the grounds that the argument
What the three questions have in common
Each argument moves from evidence to a conclusion that is broader or stronger than the evidence supports. The skill is the same every time: find the distance between what was shown and what was claimed.
- The cooperative vote. The people who answered were the people who chose to attend a meeting built around a cheese-plant tour. That group may not represent the whole membership, so a majority of it doesn't show a majority of members.
- The storage bags. The argument works only if the bags stay airtight long enough to do their job. An argument that depends on a mechanism quietly assumes nothing stops the mechanism.
- The porpoises. A before-and-after change has many possible causes. Evidence that rules out the others, like nearby bays that didn't change, is what makes one cause more believable.
How to practise this well
- Name the conclusion first. It is often not the last sentence. Words like "clearly", "therefore" and "evidently" usually mark it.
- Say the gap before you read the choices. If you read the choices first, a well-written wrong answer will set the agenda for you.
- Mark the words that matter. The highlighter exists for scope words like "most", "all", "only" and "since", which is where arguments overreach.
- Read every explanation. Knowing why the attractive wrong answer fails is what makes the next question easier.
- Time yourself only once you're accurate. The timer is off by default for a reason. Speed built on guessing doesn't last.
Members can keep going in the app: hundreds more questions, filtered by skill and difficulty, with progress tracked by question type so you can see which kinds of argument still trip you up.
Try it in Katalyna
Reasoning practice
Hundreds of original practice arguments with hints, a highlighter, and an explanation for every choice.
Frequently asked
A gap between the evidence and the conclusion: the evidence could all be true and the conclusion still be false. Common ones are an unrepresentative sample, an unstated assumption the argument depends on, and ignoring another possible cause.
Something the argument needs to be true but never says. A quick test: negate it. If the argument falls apart once the statement is false, the argument depended on it.
Rule out the alternatives. Evidence that comparable cases without the supposed cause did not change makes the proposed cause much more believable.
No. Every question is original, written for Katalyna's practice tool. None comes from, or is endorsed by, any testing organisation.