Logical reasoning PrepTest 102 · Section 3 · Question 6

Question prompt

Legislator: Your agency is 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/Facts

Valid or Flawed

Flawed/NA

Question Type

Methods of Reasoning Questions

Stimulus Summary

L: The industry you regulate is scandal-plagued, but you hired only 400 of the 500 budgeted investigators, so you hamstrung your agency. R: Starting salaries were too low to hire 500 qualified people.

Answer Anticipation

Whenever a Methods of Reasoning question features a second speaker, we should start with a couple considerations: Does the second speaker agree or disagree with the first speaker’s conclusion? If she disagrees, does she think it’s wrong or unsupported? Does the second speaker agree or disagree with the first speaker’s premises? Logic/assumptions? Does she bring up a new consideration? This argument, however, follows a slightly different pattern in that the Regulator is defending her action’s from an attack by the Legislator, so we should focus on describing it as a defense. The Legislator here says that the Regulator didn’t hire enough investigators - there was budget for 500, but only 400 were hired. That’s a charge that the Regulator doesn’t deny. However, the Legislator also claims that this was done to prevent the scandals in the regulated industry from being revealed. The Regulator disagrees with that reasoning - she states that it wasn’t done because the salaries offered weren’t high enough to attract qualified applicants. So the Regulator defends herself from the Legislator’s claims of having a bad motive by showing there was another reason for the actions she took. Let’s find an answer reflecting that.

Answer choices

  1. A
    shifting the blame for Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice A is not credited
    The Regulator does blame the legislature, but not for the scandals - for the inability to hire. This answer therefore just misses the mark.
  2. B
    providing information that challenges Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice B matches the stem
    The Legislator concludes that the failure to hire enough investigators was due to the Regulator trying to prevent scandals from coming to light. The Regulator puts forward an alternative explanation - that it was because they couldn’t attract enough qualified applicants with the salaries offered. As such, she provides info that challenges the Legislator’s conclusion about her motives, so this is the correct answer.
  3. C
    claiming that compliance with Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice C is not credited
    The Regulator doesn’t claim that hiring 500 investigators wouldn’t have allowed the industry’s scandals to be sufficiently investigated, just that they didn’t get enough qualified applicants.
  4. D
    rephrasing the legislator's conclusion Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice D is not credited
    The Legislator’s conclusion really couldn’t be rephrased in a way that was more favorable to the Regulator since it directly impugned her motives!
  5. E
    showing that the legislator's Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice E is not credited
    There’s no indication that the Legislator contradicted himself in the Regulator’s response.

What this tests

Question analytics

Based on historical answer selection rates for this question.

Answer choice distribution

  1. A 9%
  2. B Credited 82%
  3. C 5%
  4. D 2%
  5. E 3%

Deeper help

Ask follow-ups on any step

Optional AI tutor mode will let you interrogate assumptions, compare answers, and drill weak patterns without leaving the page.

Human-written explanations stay primary; AI is an add-on when you want it.

Discussion

View all discussions Start a discussion