QUESTION TEXT: Every new play that runs for more…
QUESTION TYPE: Parallel Reasoning
CONCLUSION: Every play last year that lasted more than three months was a commercial success.
REASONING: Each play that lasts more than three months is a critical success or a commercial success. Last year, each critically successful play was also commercially successful.
ANALYSIS: This is a good argument. If you’re not a critical success, you’re a commercial success. And if you are a critical success, then you’re also a commercial success.
The structure is: You’re either A or B. If you’re A, you’re also B. Therefore, in every case, you’re definitely B.
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- This is a bad argument. It gives us necessary conditions for a restaurant’s success, then mistakes them for sufficient conditions.
- This is a bad argument. Being well written and having beautiful photographs are necessary conditions for success. This argument treats them as sufficient.
- CORRECT. This matches the structure. If you don’t study soups, you study desserts. And if you do study soups, then you also study desserts.
- This is a good argument, but the structure is different. In the stimulus, a play could be both a critical and commercial success. Here, a chef has to choose between writing a book or owning his own restaurant.
- This is a good argument, but the structure is different. In the stimulus, a play had to have at least one of two kinds of success. Here, a catering service must have both, and lack of one is used to prove the conclusion.
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