LR Question 25 Explanation
QUESTION TEXT: The availability of television reduces the amount of…
QUESTION TYPE: Parallel Reasoning
CONCLUSION: TV availability reduces reading by children.
REASONING: When there is TV, children read less. When there is no TV, children read more.
ANALYSIS: This is a simple cause-and-effect argument. The argument shows the effect is present when the cause is there, and the effect goes away when the cause goes away.
___________
- CORRECT. This matches exactly. It’s a simple cause-and-effect argument.
Cause: money supply fluctuation
Effect: interest rate fluctuation
When the cause is present, the effect happens. When the cause isn’t present, the effect doesn’t happen. - This doesn’t have the same cause and effect relationship. To parallel the argument, this should have said:
“When children eat candy, their meals are disrupted. When children don’t eat candy, they eat their meals.” - This has a totally different structure. You can even draw a diagram:
Industrial pollution ➞ Carbon dioxide ➞ Global warming
There’s no distinction between the presence/absence of a cause. - This just lists two factors that affect votes. “A supercilious facial expression” isn’t the absence of confidence. Supercilious = arrogant, haughty.
To match, this should have said:
“Confidence affects votes. When candidates are confident, they gain votes. When candidates aren’t confident, they lose votes.” - This just says the relationship goes both ways. It’s like saying “The more TV, the less books. The less books, the more TV.”
It sounds similar to the stimulus, but it’s not the same thing. It should have said: “The more other activities, the less reading. The fewer other activities, the more reading.”
More Resources for Parallel Reasoning Questions
- Conditional Reasoning Article: Learn about conditional statements.
- LR Diagrams Guide: Learn how to draw LR diagrams.
- Intro Course lesson: This intro course lesson covers Parallel Reasoning questions.
- Mastery Seminar lesson: This LR Mastery seminar lesson covers parallel reasoning questions.
Hi there, would this be a valid argument? Isn’t this a mistaken negation?
This conclusion suggests a cause and effect relationship. In order to provide evidence for a cause and effect-type conclusion you need to do the following:
(1) Show that the effect is present when the cause is present
(2) Show that the effect goes away when the causes goes away
A conclusion that suggests a cause and effect relationship is different than one that suggests a conditional relationship. That sort of conclusion would look like this: If television is available, the amount of reading children do is reduced. If it were a conditional relationship, there would indeed be a mistaken negation here, but because causation is implied, the conditional reasoning fallacies don’t apply.