Logical reasoning PrepTest 119 · Section 2 · Question 20

Question prompt

Professor Donnelly's exams are Remaining source text redacted.
Why the credited answer is right

Credited answer: B

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

Argument or Facts

Argument

Valid or Flawed

Flawed

Question Type

Flawed Parallel Reasoning Questions

Stimulus Summary

Donnelly exam difficulty > Curtis exam difficulty
Donnelly’s last exam had a question about dinosaurs
Therefore - The question must be difficult

Answer Anticipation

There are two features of this argument that suggest specific flaws - which is good because the question stem asks us to find an answer that features “both” of the logical flaws!
First, the argument makes a comparison - one exam is more difficult than another exam. However, that’s a relative statement. Both exams could be quite easy, with one just being a little less easy than the other. In concluding that a question on one of them was “difficult,” the argument is jumping from relative to absolute terms, and is flawed because of it.
Second, the argument discusses something and a part of that thing - an exam and a question. The argument uses premises about the difficulty of the exam to make a determination about the difficulty of a question on it. That’s a jump from the whole to the part, so this also has a Whole vs. Part flaw.
Let’s find an answer that has both flaws, and let’s also be careful not to pick an answer that has a Part vs. Whole flaw - the stimulus goes from the whole to the part, not the other way around.

Answer choices

  1. A
    Lewis is a better Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice A is not credited
    The conclusion here is also relative, and the argument doesn’t jump between parts and wholes, so this answer is incorrect on both fronts.
  2. B
    Porter's new book of Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice B matches the stem
    This argument establishes one book of poetry as “better” than another before concluding that something is “good” - that’s the same jump from the relative to the absolute. The argument also uses what is true of a book of poems to draw a conclusion about an individual poem in the book - the same whole to part jump from the stimulus. This answer is therefore the correct one!
  3. C
    Professor Whitburn is teaching Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice C is not credited
    The conclusion here is comparative, whereas the stimulus featured an absolute comparison, so we can rule this answer choice out.
  4. D
    Shield's first novel has Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice D is not credited
    This argument jumps from a relative premise (“more complicated”) to an absolute conclusion (“very complex”), but it doesn’t go from a whole to a part. Both the premise and conclusion are about the plot - if it had gone from a discussion of the novel to a conclusion about the plot, then it could have been correct.
  5. E
    Mathematics is more difficult Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice E is not credited
    The conclusion here is relative, so it can’t make the same relative-to-absolute jump as the stimulus.

What this tests

Question analytics

Based on historical answer selection rates for this question.

Answer choice distribution

  1. A 10%
  2. B Credited 70%
  3. C 4%
  4. D 4%
  5. E 12%

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