Assignment in logic and critical thinking prelim

For each of the following passages:

(a) Indicate whether or not the passage contains an argument (or several
arguments).

(b) Write the argument(s) in standard form.

1. At best, though, there is very little chance of a longtime future in

smokejumping.
[Smokejumpers fight forest fires by using parachutes to get close to the fire
and
attempting to quench it.] To start with, you are through jumping at forty, and
for
those who think of lasting that long there are only a few openings ahead,
administrative
or maintenance.
—N. Maclean, Young Men and Fire
2.Since no man has a natural authority over his fellow man, and since force is
not
the source of right, convention remains as the basis of all legitimate
authority
among men.
—J-J. Rousseau, The Social Contract

3. Scientifically, it [Captain James Cook’s first voyage to the South Pacific]

was a
hugely successful venture. The transit of Venus was accurately observed and
recorded,
kangaroos were discovered, ethnographic studies of indigenous peoples
carried out, the New Zealand coastline was charted, and a vast amount of
material
collected and shipped back to the Royal Society—thousands of plants, five
hundred fish preserved in alcohol, five hundred bird skins and hundreds of
mineral
specimens.
—D. Livingstone, The Geographical Tradition

4. Suppose Achilles [the famous Greek warrior] runs ten times as fast as the
tortoise
[a very slow moving animal] and gives him a hundred yards start. In order to
win
the race, Achilles must first make up for his initial handicap by running a
hundred
yards; but when he has done this and has reached the point where the tortoise
started, the animal has had time to advance ten yards. While Achilles runs
these
ten yards, the tortoise gets one yard ahead; when Achilles has run this yard,
the
tortoise is a tenth of a yard ahead; and so on, without end. Achilles never
catches
the tortoise, because the tortoise always holds a lead, however small.
—M. Black, “Achilles and the Tortoise,”
in W. Salmon, Ed., Zeno’s Paradoxes
5. Poetry, indeed, cannot be translated, and therefore it is the poets who
preserve
languages; for we would not be at the trouble to learn a language when we can
have all that is written in it just as well in translation. But, as we cannot
have the
beauties of poetry but in its original language, we learn it.
—S. Johnson
Posted Tue Sep 7, 2021 at 12:48 am
Criteria Grading Scale
Content 5 4 3 2
Excellent Good Satisfactory Needs Improvement

Focus 5 4 3 2
Excellent Good Satisfactory Needs Improvement

Organization 5 4 3 2
Excellent Good Satisfactory Needs Improvement

Style 5 4 3 2
Excellent Good Satisfactory Needs Improvement