Logical reasoning PrepTest 101 · Section 2 · Question 3

Question prompt

A group of unusual Remaining source text redacted.
Why the credited answer is right

Credited answer: B

The notes below walk through why it fits the stem and how to eliminate the rest.

Argument or Facts

Argument

Valid or Flawed

Valid

Question Type

Methods of Reasoning Questions

Stimulus Summary

Some meteorites were from Mercury, Venus, or Mars. They couldn’t have been from Mercury or Venus, so they must have been from Mars.

Answer Anticipation

Methods of Reasoning questions have some common reasoning patterns that they fall into, and recognizing them is a great way to get through these questions quickly and accurately.
Here, the argument establishes that one of three things is true before ruling two out. It then concludes that the third thing must be true. That’s a common method of reasoning - ruling out alternatives. We should look for an answer describing that method.

Answer choices

  1. A
    offering a counterexample to Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice A is not credited
    To analyze this answer, we first have to determine what the theory is, and there’s two possibilities. If the theory is that the meteorites originated on one of three planets, there’s no counterexample calling that into question (and, in fact, the argument relies on it being true). If the theory is that the meteorites originated on Mars, that’s the conclusion - there’s no counterexample offered. While the argument does rule out two of the three possibilities, it doesn’t do so with counterexamples - it does so by discussing physics.

  2. B
    eliminating competing alternative explanations
    Why choice B matches the stem
    This answer is the generic “eliminating alternatives” answer choice, so it’s correct.

  3. C
    contrasting present circumstances with Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice C is not credited
    There’s no discussion of things that are different between the past and present, so this answer is out of scope.

  4. D
    questioning an assumption
    Why choice D is not credited
    There’s no assumption identified or questioned, so this answer is out of scope. There would generally need to be a counterpoint for the argument to question an assumption, and this argument has competing alternatives, not viewpoints. (That said, if the alternatives were ruled out by highlighting a necessary assumption for them to be true that the argument showed must be false, this answer could have been correct.)

  5. E
    abstracting a general principle Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice E is not credited
    The conclusion is about a specific situation - the meteorites in Shergotty were from Mars. As such, it doesn’t abstract a general principle.

What this tests

Question analytics

Based on historical answer selection rates for this question.

Answer choice distribution

  1. A 4%
  2. B Credited 94%
  3. C 1%
  4. D -100%
  5. E 1%

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