Logical reasoning PrepTest 112 · Section 1 · Question 14

Question prompt

If Slater wins the Remaining source text redacted.
Why the credited answer is right

Credited answer: E

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

Argument or Facts

Facts

Valid or Flawed

NA

Question Type

Must Be True Questions / Sufficient & Necessary Questions

Stimulus Summary

Slater wins → McGuinness appointed head of planning
Yerxes - Architect with 15 years experience on the planning committee
Yerxes qualifications > McGuinness qualifications
~Grossly inaccurate polls → Slater wins

Answer Anticipation

First, a note on our diagram for the last sentence. We treated “unless” as “if not” - if you used another method, you’d end up with the contrapositive of what we have. You’d need to contrapose it to get it to line up with the first conditional, as we’ll discuss.
When a Must be True question presents a mix of conditional and nonconditional statements, work with the conditionals first to see if you can combine them.
Here, we can combine the first and last statements - If the polls aren’t grossly inaccurate, then McGuinness will be appointed head of the planning committee.
With that inference drawn, let’s see how it works with the nonconditional statements. The overlap between those two is McGuinness, who we know will be appointed to the head of the planning committee if the polls aren’t wildly off. He’s also less qualified than Yerxes. So we can combine these to say if the polls aren’t wildly off, then someone other than the most qualified person will be appointed to head up the planning committee.
Chaining everything together so that we’re ready for all eventualities:
~Polls off → Slater wins → McG heads planning → ~Most experienced person heads planning
Most experienced person heads planning → ~McG heads planning → ~Slater wins → Polls off

Answer choices

  1. A
    If the polls are Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice A is not credited
    The polls being grossly inaccurate isn’t a sufficient condition in the stimulus, so this answer must feature some type of reversal/negation.
  2. B
    McGuinness will be appointed Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice B is not credited
    McGuinness head of planning → ~Polls off. This answer is a reversal of the chain from the stimulus.
  3. C
    Either Slater will win Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice C is not credited
    We can diagram either/or statements as “If A doesn’t happen, then B does.” So this can be diagrammed as: ~Slater win → Yerxes appointed head of planning commission. First, Slater not winning is only sufficient to say something about polls, not appointments to the planning commission. Second, there’s no statement that establishes a condition under which Yerxes would be appointed head of the commission!
  4. D
    McGuinness is not an Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice D is not credited
    This answer is very tempting! After all, it’s noted that Yerxes is more qualified than McGuinness because she has both of these qualifications. However, that could mean that McGuinness lacks only one of these qualifications, not both, as this answer states. If it said “or” instead of “and,” then it’d likely be the correct answer.
  5. E
    If the polls are Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice E matches the stem
    ~Polls off → Less qualified than Y will be appointed head of the planning commission. This matches our anticipation. If the polls aren’t off, then Slater will win and appoint McGuinness to head that commission. Yerxes is more qualified than McGuinness, supporting this answer.

What this tests

Question analytics

Based on historical answer selection rates for this question.

Answer choice distribution

  1. A 8%
  2. B 13%
  3. C 6%
  4. D 5%
  5. E Credited 68%

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