XAT 2018 — VARC Question 24
Read the following poem and answer the questions that follow:
A spirit that lives in this world and does not wear the shirt of love, such an existence in a deep disgrace.
Be foolish in love, because love is all there is.
There is no way into presence except through love exchange.
If someone asks, But what is love? Answer, dissolving the will.
True freedom comes to those who have escaped the question of freewill and fate.
Love is an emperor. The two worlds play across him. He barely notices their tumbling game.
Love and lover live in eternity. Other desires are substitute for that way of being.
How long do you lay embracing a corpse? Love rather the soul, which cannot be held.
Anything born in spring dies in the fall, but love is not seasonal.
With wine pressed from grapes, expect a hangover.
But this love path has no expectations. You are uneasy riding the body?
Dismount, travel lighter. Wings will be given.
Be clear like mirror holding nothing.
Be clean of pictures and the worry that comes with images.
Gaze into what is not ashamed or afraid of any truth.
Contain all human faces in your own without any judgment of them.
Be pure emptiness. What is inside of that? You ask. Silence is all I can say.
Lovers have some secrets they keep.
Read the following statements carefully:
A manager seeks approval for conducting a training programme on 'openness'. He puts forward the following arguments in favour of the program to his CEO.
Which of the following arguments is the least likely to have a logical fallacy?
Answer & solution
- A
We did a pilot training program with a group of employees. Post the program, one of the participants was open to new ideas.
- B
This program should be good for our organization since it is designed by a leading consultant.
Internal studies conducted across groups and locations showed that 'openness' increases innovation.
- D
We have only two options; we can either train our employees on 'openness' or suffer the consequences.
- E
If you really care about the organization, you should approve this training program.
A logical fallacy is an error in reasoning that will undermine the logic of the argument under discussion. [1] is clearly eliminated as “one of the participants being open to new ideas” cannot be extrapolated to mean that such a training programme should do well for all participants. [2] indulges in the fallacy of ‘Appeal to Authority’. Here, a claimed authority's support is used as evidence for an argument's conclusion. Thus, [2] is rejected. [4] suffers from the ‘False Dilemma/False Dichotomy’ fallacy. This limits the options to two when there may be more options to choose from. [5] is an example of a straw man fallacy. In this case, no evidence of any benefit of the training programme is presented. On the other hand, it is implied that those who do not approve of this training program are not concerned about the organization. Only [3] presents believable evidence in favour of the training program.
Hence, the correct answer is option 3.