Logical reasoning PrepTest 106 · Section 3 · Question 5

Question prompt

Jane: Television programs and Remaining source text redacted.
Why the credited answer is right

Credited answer: C

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

Argument or Facts

Argument/Argument

Valid or Flawed

Flawed/Flawed

Question Type

Errors in Reasoning Questions

Stimulus Summary

J: Violent teen TV is popular and causes teens to be violent. Violent scenes with teens should thus be banned.
M: That’s censorship! Plus kids were violent before violent TV, so violent TV doesn’t cause violence.

Answer Anticipation

This first question asks us to find a flaw in Maurice’s rebuttal against Jane, so we should start by looking at his argument.
First, we can throw out the claim of censorship - Maurice doesn’t back that up with any premises, so it’s not an argument.
Focusing on the actual argument portion of what he says, he rules out violent TV as a cause of violence because violence predates TV. However, that’s like saying car accidents can’t cause death because people were dying before cars were invented! Things can have multiple causes, and yet Maurice ignores the possibility that violent TV can be causing violence, while there are still other causes that predate it.
Let’s find an answer reflecting that.

Answer choices

  1. A
    It presupposes that an Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice A is not credited
    Maurice doesn’t discuss the popularity of Jane’s policy, nor its effectiveness, so this answer is doubly wrong.
  2. B
    It confuses a subjective Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice B is not credited
    Maurice’s appeal to history doesn’t confuse a subjective judgment with an objective one - whether there has been violence is an objective standard!
  3. C
    It rules out something Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice C matches the stem
    This answer describes the Causal flaw that Maurice commits. For any given effect, there are multiple potential causes. The presence of an effect before a supposed cause exists might be evidence against a causal relationship, but it doesn’t prove that one doesn’t exist, so this answer is correct.
  4. D
    It cites purported historical Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice D is not credited
    This could be verified by looking at records from the time periods - court records, for instance!
  5. E
    It relies on an Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice E is not credited
    There aren’t two different definitions of violence in use here - all instances are using it in its common definition.

What this tests

Question analytics

Based on historical answer selection rates for this question.

Answer choice distribution

  1. A 7%
  2. B 4%
  3. C Credited 87%
  4. D 1%
  5. E 1%

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

No threads yet—be the first to ask a question or share an approach.

View all discussions Start a discussion