LR Question 6 Explanation
QUESTION TEXT: Many people are alarmed about the population explosion…
QUESTION TYPE: Flawed Parallel Reasoning
CONCLUSION: We don’t need to take population control measures.
REASONING: The current increase in population has been accompanied by economic growth.
ANALYSIS: This is a bad argument. It doesn’t show us that population caused the increase in economic growth. Perhaps we would be even richer without population growth. And there is also no guarantee that growth will continue in the future.
The structure is the following: There is no reason to worry about the problem, because presently the problem is accompanied by the solution.
___________
- This isn’t claiming there is no problem: magazine subscribers really will pay higher rates.
- CORRECT. We don’t know if sales are increasing because of the aggressive behavior. It might be a coincidence: perhaps sales would be higher if the manager weren’t such a jerk. And there’s no guarantee that sales will keep increasing in the future.
- This argument does provide a possible solution, and there’s no reason to think that the solution wouldn’t keep working in the future.
- This doesn’t claim that there is no problem. It just urges caution.
- This doesn’t claim that there is no problem. Price increases are real, but fortunately they may stop soon.
More Resources for Flawed Parallel Reasoning Questions
- Conditional Reasoning Article: Learn about conditional statements.
- LR Diagrams Guide: Learn how to draw LR diagrams.
- Flaw drills: Practice identifying flaws.
- Intro Course lesson: This intro course lesson covers Flawed Parallel Reasoning questions.
- Mastery Seminar lesson: This LR Mastery seminar lesson covers flawed parallel reasoning questions.
Hey,
I ruled out B because of “most,” being that the stimulus uses “many.” How can I better distinguish when to elimate based off formal logic?
In this case the stimulus didn’t hinge on formal logic. Like, they didn’t also use “many” or an equivalent term in the conclusion. Instead they used “should” a moral term.
In that case, the formal element it not relevant. You just need to know that they said “some meaningful quantity of people” were alarmed, and the same can be said for the stimulus.
It’s important to know when a concept is basically the same ina given context. For example, “enough” money could be $6 or $6,000,000 but you’d need to use common sense to distinguish which was which. It’s a common sense and intended meaning thing, not a logic thing.