I arrived home to find the birthday cake crudely eaten. Nobody was home besides my dog. My dog must have eaten the birthday cake.

The statements above are a good example of ______________________.

Question

I arrived home to find the birthday cake crudely eaten. Nobody was home besides my dog. My dog must have eaten the birthday cake.

The statements above are a good example of ______________________.

BlackTom AI · Accepted Answer

Question restatement: The scenario presents an observation (the cake was eaten and only the dog was home) and asks which type of reasoning the situation exemplifies.
Option 1: inductive reasoning. Inductive reasoning involves drawing general conclusions from specific observations. While the cake-eaten-at-home observation could contribute to a general pattern, this option would require multiple observations and generalization beyond a single incident, so it doesn’t best capture the situation.
Option 2: abductive reasoning. Abductive reasoning is choosing the most plausible explanation for a given set of facts. Given the evidence (cake eaten, only dog present), the most plausible explanation is that the dog ate the cake. This aligns with abductive inference, which seeks the best explanation for the observed data.
Option 3: deductive reasoning. Deductive reasoning moves from general premises to a specific conclusion with logical necessity. The scenario does not present general rules applied to a specific case in a way that yields a certain conclusion; the conclusion (dog ate the cake) is not guaranteed, only plausible, so this is not a deductive fit.
Option 4: fallacy. A fallacy is a flaw in reasoning, not a type of reasoning category used to infer explanations from evidence. The scenario does not describe a mistaken argument pattern, so labeling it as a fallacy would be inappropriate.
In summary, the situation best illustrates abductive reasoning because it identifies the most plausible explanation (the dog ate the cake) given the available evidence, rather than making a guaranteed deduction or broad generalization. The other options mischaracterize the reasoning process or rely on incorrect assumptions about the nature of the inference.

MPU3202.4C.JUN2025 Quiz CD (4%)

I arrived home to find the birthday cake crudely eaten. Nobody was home besides my dog. My dog must have eaten the birthday cake. The statements above are a good example of ______________________.

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