Assumption -- Identify Hidden

Identify the likely hidden assumptions in these arguments:

1. We should reduce the penalty for drunken driving, as a milder penalty would mean more convictions.
2. Moby Dick is a whale. So Moby Dick is a mammal.
3. Giving students a fail grade will damage their self-confidence. Therefore, we should not fail students.
4. It should not be illegal for adults to smoke pot. After all, it does not harm anyone.
5. There is nothing wrong talking on a mobile phone during lectures. Other students do it all the time.
6. Killing an innocent person is wrong. Therefore, abortion is wrong.
7. Traces of ammonia have been found in Mars' atmosphere. So there must be life on Mars.
8. There cannot be more than one God. Otherwise, there would be two Gods equally powerful, or one is more powerful than the other. 

from http://philosophy.hku.hk/think/arg/hidden.php

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We should reduce the penalty for drunken driving, as a milder penalty would mean more convictions. [Show answer]

We should increase the number of convictions for drunken driving.

Moby Dick is a whale. So Moby Dick is a mammal. [Show answer]

“Anything that is a whale is a mammal”, or “If Moby Dick is a whale it is a mammal.”

Giving students a fail grade will damage their self-confidence. Therefore, we should not fail students. [Show answer]

We should not damage students' self-confidence.

It should not be illegal for adults to smoke pot. After all, it does not harm anyone. [Show answer]

Anything that does not cause harm should not be made illegal.

There is nothing wrong talking on a mobile phone during lectures. Other students do it all the time. [Show answer]

If an action is done by other students (or people) all the time, then there is nothing wrong with it.

Killing an innocent person is wrong. Therefore, abortion is wrong. [Show answer]

Abortion involves the killing of an innocent person.

Traces of ammonia have been found in Mars' atmosphere. So there must be life on Mars. [Show answer]

"Only living things produce ammonia." (or something similar)

There cannot be more than one God. Otherwise, there would be two Gods equally powerful, or one is more powerful than the other. [Show answer]

If something is a God, nothing else can be as powerful or more powerful than it.

from:  http://philosophy.hku.hk/think/arg/hidden.php

Paragraph -- sentence order

Arrange for Main Ideas

1.  The rosary beads they’d twisted and looped around her knotty hands were her everyday amber ones, not the good wine-red ones she took out of their velvet case at Easter and Christmas – the ones Grandma herself would have chosen for this occasion. 

 

2.  Mrs. Mumphy and her daughter had gone to Grandma’s house to pick out her clothes. 

3.  She had on the green print dress she’d worn to our wedding.

 

4.  I forced my eyes up to her wax-museum face.

 

5.  Death or the undertaker had relaxed her facial muscles.

 

6. She was and wasn’t Grandma.

Paragraph 1 - Meaning

Six days before the sunset, two girls walked into town.  The dog was small and brown; he sat patiently waiting by the tree for the green side.  But, how many times must it be returned before it can be eaten.  Matter as we have seen, can exist in three forms.  However, blood was the elixir that sustained his dark, dark life.

In one of Watson's most famous experiments, he and his second wife conditioned a boy named Albert to fear a white rat.  At the beginning of the study, Albert was unafraid of the animal and played with it freely.  While Albert was doing so one day, Watson deliberately frightened the child by sounding a terrifying noise behind him.  Albert was startled and began to cry.  Thereafter, he avoided the rat and cried if it was brought close to him.

(Adapted from:  McConnell, J.   (1986).  Understanding Human Behavior.  Holt, Rinehart, and Winston:  Fort Worth  P, 268)

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