Logical reasoning PrepTest 107 · Section 4 · Question 12

Flawed

Must Be True Questions

Large number of demerits AND Convicted of serious driving offense → Jail OR Driver reeducation Driver reeducation → Likely to increase responsibility Large number of demerits → ~Likely to increase responsibility

Wow, there are some complex conditionals in this stimulus! Let’s work through them and see if we can get a solid anticipation.

For the first statement, note that we diagrammed it despite it being a “should” statement. Since it’s written in a manner that makes it sound like a rule, it can be diagrammed, but let’s remember that it’s a “should” statement and thus we can pick an answer with that language. From there, we see that there is a situation (Demerits + Conviction) that the Editorialist believes should force someone to go to jail or driver reeducation, as we diagrammed.

The second statement starts with “Only if,” introducing a necessary condition. It establishes that one of the options in the necessary condition of the first should be used only under a certain condition - when it’s likely to increase responsibility.

The final statement isn’t 100% certain - it says “almost impossible.” However, we diagrammed it as a conditional. Why? Well, consider the term here it shares with the second statement. There, the necessary condition was about the likelihood of something increasing responsibility. If something is “almost impossible,” then it’s guaranteed to be unlikely. So we can diagram this as a conditional, with the necessary condition as ~Likely to increase responsibility.

With all of these statements diagrammed, let’s look to combine them. The easy combination is in statements #2 and #3, but we need to take a contrapositive. Since statement #1 has Large number of demerits as a part of a sufficient condition that can’t be split, let’s take the contrapositive of #2 to keep that overlap preserved. Chaining #3 and the contrapositive of #2, we get:

Large number of demerits → ~Driver reeducation

Since statements #1 is based on someone with a large number of demerits, we can infer, based on this combination, that they shouldn’t be sent to driver reeducation. Therefore, someone with a large number of demerits who is convicted of a serious driving offense should, according to this argument, go to jail. Let’s find that as an answer.