Logical reasoning PrepTest 116 · Section 2 · Question 22

Correct. Argument or Facts:
Facts

Question Type:
Must Be True

Stimulus Summary:
(1) Parrot → Learn to speak a few words/phrases
(2) Australian parrots—some—Sweet temper
(3) Parrot—most—Show a lot of affection for someone who raised and hand—fed it

Answer Anticipation:
This stimulus features a mix of conditionals and quantified statements, so we hope you're up to speed with the rules for making inferences from them!

Before we make some inferences here, let's talk about the statement we didn't diagram—the first half of sentence #2. The reason for that is that it doesn't really tell us much—some parrots are more pleasant than others. That doesn't tell us that any are or are not pleasant, or the range of the pleasantness. In fact, it would be nearly impossible for all parrots to be equally pleasant, so this is a non—premise—something that says literally nothing of any note! We can ignore it.

With that out of the way, since there are only 3 statements, there are at most 3 inferences, so we should make them all up front:
1+2) While the shared term is slightly different here, it's in a way that allows an inference since what is true of all parrots applies to every subset of parrot—including Australian ones. And since the sufficient condition of the conditional overlaps with a term in a some statement, we can make an inference: Learn to speak a few words/phrases—some—Sweet temper

1+3) Conditionals that share a sufficient condition with the first term in a most statement lead to a some inference: Learn to speak a few words/phrases—some—Show a lot of affection for someone who raised and hand—fed it

2+3) We can't get an inference by combining a some and a most statement, so no inference here!

Answer Explanation:
This answer is the inference from statements #1 and #2. Some Australian parrots are both sweet tempered and can learn to speak a few words/phrases, justifying this answer.

Key Takeaway:
Learn your quantifier inference rules! They'll get you a couple points on the exam.

Incorrect. This answer relies on a negation of statement #2 (in talking about non—Australian parrots) and in conflating tremendous affection for an owner with being sweet—tempered (the bird could be nasty to everyone else). It's therefore unsupported.

Incorrect. While some Australian parrots are sweet—tempered, there's nothing that allows us to conclude the sweetest—tempered parrots are from there.

Incorrect. This answer is too extreme. While we can find sweet—tempered parrots who can learn to speak in Australia, the stimulus leaves open that they exist elsewhere, as well. Saying, though some" Australian parrots are sweet tempered doesn't mean that they're the only ones out there.

Incorrect. In shifting to discussing all types of pet birds instead of just referring to parrots, this answer is out of scope.