Logical reasoning PrepTest 123 · Section 2 · Question 22

Question prompt

Editorialist:  News media rarely cover Remaining source text redacted.
Why the credited answer is right

Credited answer: D

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

Argument or Facts

Facts

Question Type

Must Be True Questions

Stimulus Summary

Rare local media coverage and secretly conducted local political business results in isolated local politicians, which results in decreased chances of residents making a positive impact, which results in residents being discouraged from participating in local politics.

Answer Anticipation

This entire stimulus is a long chain of causal relationships, as seen through language like "has the effect of" and "in turn discourages." When ideas/facts are chaining together, it's important to write out that chain so you can see which ideas are connected as you analyze answers. It's also important to note that these relationships are causal, not conditional—you can tell that from the causal language, but also from the less-than-certain language (rarely, usually, tend to, reducing the chance). As such, there's no contrapositive to worry about!

Answer choices

  1. A
    Particular acts of resident Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice A is not credited
    Incorrect. While being isolated reduces the changes that particular acts make an impact, this answer choice is too strong in saying that reducing that isolation would make resident participation likely to make an impact. It might increase the chances of it, but that's different from saying it's likely.
  2. B
    Local political business should Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice B is not credited
    Incorrect. The Editorialist never makes a statement of opinion about whether these effects are good or bad. Therefore, we can't infer that something should be done to change them.
  3. C
    The most important factor Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice C is not credited
    Incorrect. While the stimulus does bring up several factors, it never states that any of them are more or less important than others, let alone that any are the most important factor. This extreme language is unsupported.
  4. D
    More-frequent thorough coverage of Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice D matches the stem
    Correct. Based on the causal chain presented in the stimulus, we can infer that the lack of local coverage is a cause of discouragement to resident participation. Therefore, we can also infer that increasing that coverage would reduce at least one cause of discouragement. Note that this answer choice doesn't state it would increase participation, which would be incorrect—just that it reduces a source of discouragement.
  5. E
    If resident participation in Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice E is not credited
    Incorrect. This answer choice tries to take the contrapositive of the causal relationship, which you can't do. Stopping an effect doesn't necessarily stop the cause.

What this tests

Question analytics

Based on historical answer selection rates for this question.

Answer choice distribution

  1. A 23%
  2. B 20%
  3. C 17%
  4. D Credited 33%
  5. E 6%

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