Logical reasoning PrepTest 118 · Section 1 · Question 22

Incorrect. The conclusion is about all situations ("in no situation"), so this answer about "some "occasions isn't strong enough to justify the conclusion.

Incorrect. Similar to (A), this answer about "some" occasions isn't strong enough to justify a conclusion about what is true "in no situation."

Correct. Argument or Facts:
Argument

Valid or Flawed:
Flawed

Question Type:
Strengthen with Sufficient Premise

Stimulus Summary:
Performed action → not Know all consequences
Therefore: Morally right = Best consequences → not Know action morally right

Answer Anticipation:
While this Strengthen with Sufficient Premise question does feature conditional logic, it doesn't feature a chain that we have to build off of like many others do. Instead, we'll have to analyze the premises and conclusion to see where the gap is.

Starting in the conclusion, we should look for any new terms or concepts that show up there without being in the premises. And we see two—"morally right" and "best consequences." In particular, that idea of "best consequences" is related to a term in the premise without being directly connected—the idea of not knowing all the consequences of a performed action. Since these two ideas represent the gap between the premises and conclusion, the correct answer should connect them—if you don't know all the consequences of an action, you can't know the best consequence. If that's true, and if you can't know all the consequences for any action, then you can never know the best consequences, so you can't know whether an action is morally right.

To repeat with the contrapositive:

not Know all consequences → not Know best consequence
Know best consequence → Know all consequences

Answer Explanation:
This answer matches our anticipation. If knowing an action has the best consequences requires knowing all the consequences, and we can never know all the consequences of an action, then we'll never know if an action has the best consequences. If we can't know that and the action with the best consequences is the morally right one, we can't know what action is morally right—justifying the conclusion.

Key Takeaway:
The vast majority of Strengthen with Sufficient Premise questions will introduce a new term in the conclusion that needs to be connected to something from the premises. If you're lost in one of these questions, start there!

Incorrect. This answer choice itself introduces a new term—immediate consequences—and so it doesn't bridge an existing gap in the argument.

Incorrect. The argument doesn't distinguish between acts having different outcomes for different people (while leaving open that possibility). This answer doesn't address the gap between knowing the best consequences and knowing all the consequences, so it's incorrect.