LR Question 16 Explanation
QUESTION TEXT: Voter: Our prime minister is evidently seeking a…
QUESTION TYPE: Flawed Parallel Reasoning
CONCLUSION: Our prime minister wants to take a job at an international organization.
REASONING:
- Seeking international job ➞ travels a lot
- The prime minister travels a lot.
ANALYSIS: This argument mixes up necessary and sufficient. The fact that someone has the necessary condition of something doesn’t mean they have the sufficient condition. Here’s a parallel example:
- LSAT student ➞ Sleeps
- Donald Trump sleeps
- Therefore, Donald Trump is an LSAT student.
You really can’t go from necessary to sufficient.
___________
- This has a “most” statement, while the stimulus had a conditional statement.
And, this goes in the proper direction, from running for office to golfer. “Must” be a golfer is wrong, but the argument would have been correct had it said “Kao is probably a golfer”. - This doesn’t even have a conditional statement which can be applied to Frank!
- This is a correlation/causation flaw. The argument had a necessary/sufficient flaw.
- CORRECT. This matches the necessary/sufficient flaw.
Negotiate loan ➞ go to bank
Thompson went to the bank. - This is a different flaw. It’s more or less “Thinking something happened because we can’t prove it didn’t.”
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.
I got this one right by noticing the “most” vs. conditional difference, but the “to meet with a loan agent” part had me hesitating. So it’s generally true that an extra layer of specificity (the loan agent) doesn’t affect the nature of the argument?
Yep, that’s right! The extra layer of “to meet with a loan agent” doesn’t change the structure of the argument: It’s still a necessary/sufficient flaw like the stimulus. Going to the bank is necessary for negotiating a loan, but the argument wrongly concludes that someone must be negotiating a loan just because they went to the bank.
The added detail actually mirrors the stimulus, it says the PM “spent more days abroad than home”, even though the condition was just a lot of time traveling The extra specificity doesn’t actually change the logical structure, just as the specifics of meeting with a loan agent in D. Hope that helps!