Logical reasoning PrepTest 120 · Section 4 · Question 25

Incorrect. Factory safety a concern → All employees report danger
Accidents prevented → All employees report danger
This answer has two premises that share a necessary condition, so we can eliminate it as the stimulus had two premises that chained together.

Incorrect. Serious about improving efficiency → Eliminate redundancy
not Fire senior employees → not Eliminate redundancy
Therefore - Fire senior employees
So close! However, this answer choice talks about what options are currently available, not what will be true in the near future. That's missing the timeline element and also is more about available action than expectations.

Incorrect. Before we even diagram this answer out, a quick read shows us that the conclusion is a conditional, so it doesn't match up with the stimulus.

Correct. Argument or Facts:
Argument

Valid or Flawed:
Flawed

Question Type:
Parallel Reasoning

Stimulus Summary:
not Rate of economic growth decreases → not Inflation stabilizes
Rate of economic growth decreases → Full cooperation of world leaders
Therefore - not Inflation stabilizes anytime soon

Answer Anticipation:
This Parallel Reasoning question features conditional logic, but it's a bit tricky to diagram out, so let's work through it.

We started with the opening line, which uses "unless" as its conditional trigger. We treated that as "if not," resulting in the statement as diagrammed.

There are two tricks to the second statement. First, it's important to rephrase the first term to match the same concept in the first conditional—slowing the economy is the same as the rate of economic growth decreasing. Second, "required" is the conditional indicator here, and so we need to figure out what is required for what, and the thing required is the necessary condition. Since full cooperation is required for a slowing of economic growth, that cooperation is the necessary condition.

Finally, the conclusion. It brings up the inflation rates stabilizing, saying that it would be "overly optimistic" to think that'll happen.

With that noted, we can dive into the logic. The first conditional lines up with the conclusion, so no need to contrapose there. The second statement doesn't line up with the first conditional yet, but it can if we contrapose it:
not Full cooperation → not Rate of growth decreases

With that done, we can see that they chain together, and the "short version" of the argument is that without full cooperation of world leaders, inflation won't stabilize, so inflation won't stabilize anytime soon.

The argument does make an assumption—that thinking there will be full cooperation of world leaders is overly optimistic (i.e., it won't happen). This would trigger the conditional statement and allow the conclusion to be drawn. However, it's not all that necessary to think about that, as if we match up the elements of the argument, then the assumption should match up, as well.

With all this noted, what we're looking for is an argument with two conditional statements that chain together, and a conclusion that says the necessary condition of the chain won't happen in the near future (here, that necessary condition being that inflation won't stabilize).

Answer Explanation:
Safest vehicles possible → Objective structural tests
Objective structural tests → Huge cost overruns
Therefore - not Safest vehicles possible
Similar argument structure to (B), but this one does talk about what will happen in the future - so it has the timeline element that was missing from (B) and is present in the stimulus.

Key Takeaway:
If you were stuck between (B) and (D), you're in good company! At that point, you should compare the answers to each other and note any key differences between them. In particular, focus on conclusions, and see which one sounds more like the stimulus. Sometimes, that's all you'll have to go on!

Incorrect. The conclusion here brings up the term that's shared between the two conditionals, not the necessary condition of the chain, so we can eliminate it before we diagram it!