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今天，我们来复习指令：
Write a response in which you examine the stated and/or unstated assumptions of the argument. Be sure to explain how the argument depends on these assumptions and what the implications are for the argument if the assumptions prove unwarranted.
上次我们说到，这个指令可以解读为：作者在讨论的时候默认了某些情况或者条件，这些情况/条件并没有充分的证据去支撑或者并没有被作者说明。那么，这些情况/条件就是assumptions，而且是questionable assumptions。
我们来看文本： “Ten years ago, our company had two new office buildings constructed as regional headquarters for two different regions. The buildings were erected by two different construction companies — Alpha and Zeta. Even though the two buildings had identical floor plans, the building constructed by Zeta cost 30 percent more to build, and its expenses for maintenance last year were twice those of the building constructed by Alpha. Furthermore, the energy consumption of the Zeta building has been higher than that of the Alpha building every year since its construction. Such data, plus the fact that Alpha has a stable workforce with little employee turnover, indicate that we should use Alpha rather than Zeta for our contemplated new building project.” 我们以一个逻辑点的分析为例： The comparison and contrast the author makes between Zeta and Alpha are justifiable only on the premise that the two companies have not changed during the ten years’ time.However, the premise may be false, since it is, with no concrete evidence, an assumption. In fact, the ten years is a time long enough for any company, for example, the Zeta company, to make improvements. Also, during such a long time, a company, Alpha as an example, may also witness its unfavorable changes. Unfortunately, the author, apparently without considering this possibility, falsely uses the situation ten years ago as a reference to evaluate the two companies in today’s situation. As a consequence, since the whole argument, consisting of the many contrasts, depends on that premise, little of the argument would be valid if the premise proves to be false. 这个逻辑点是关于时间的，在文本的一开始就出现了。作者在此默认的条件是如今的情况与十年前的情况是一样的，但是这个默认是主观的（因为作者没有用任何客观证据去说明）。那么，在这个无端的默认的前提下进行的后文的所有比较都可能是没有意义的，因为那些比较都是基于这个默认。于是，这里我们就找到了一个questionable assumption。并且，这个questionable assumption，作为整个argument的大前提，被我们证明可能是unwarranted（指令里的要求）时，我们就进一步讨论了整个argument受到的影响。 好了，今天至此。大家可以回顾第【二十九】讲，与本讲搭配起来学习和琢磨assumption类型的指令。同时，如果有任何疑问，大家可以在留言区提问。