Logical reasoning PrepTest 124 · Section 1 · Question 19

Correct. Argument or Facts:
Argument

Valid or Flawed:
Flawed

Question Type:
Parallel Reasoning

Stimulus Summary:
Those sleeping under 6 hours who get a full night's rest usually feel less anxious, so sleeping more can generally cure high anxiety.

Answer Anticipation:
The conclusion in this argument has two key logic keywords.

The first is "probably," noting the logical force of the conclusion, and it'll be important to note because the correct answer will almost certainly include equivalent language.

The second is "cause" which, obviously, hints at causal logic. It also hints at a correlation/causation flaw, so we should check the premises to see if one is present. And it is! The premise talks about what happened when a certain group (those who sleep fewer than 6 hours/night) slept more—they felt less anxious. That doesn't mean that the sleep caused the drop in anxiety. There could be something else that's allowing them to sleep more and lowering their anxiety (found a job, finished a project, etc. . . ) or a drop in anxiety might actually have made it possible for them to get more sleep (reversed causality). So in concluding that the sleep caused the anxiety drop, the argument commits a correlation/causation flaw.

One more thing to note before we form our anticipation—the premise also includes logical force language—"typically."

So we should look for an answer that jumps from a correlation/causation and has moderate logical force keywords in both the premise and conclusion. Let's start analyzing each answer by seeing if those logical force keywords are present, and then, if they are, look for the correlation/causation flaw.

Answer Explanation:
The premise and conclusion both match the logical force of the stimulus ("generally", "probably"), so this answer passes the first test. And it also has the correlation/causation flaw—it goes from a correlation between a certain group (those who never advertised online before) seeing an improvement in their financial situation to a conclusion that the internet ads were probably a cause of the improvement. This is therefore the correct answer.

Key Takeaway:
Logical force! In Parallel Reasoning questions, logical force can be key. Identifying the logical force of the premises and conclusion can allow you to narrow down the answers to dive into more deeply, so be sure to use it to help guide your work and save some time.

Incorrect. This answer fails the first test—there's no moderate logical force keyword. If you missed that, there's also a key shift here that invalidates the answer—it shifts between groups from the premise to the conclusion. In the stimulus, both the premise and the conclusion are about individuals sleeping fewer than six hours per night. This answer goes from small companies that had never used internet ads to a conclusion about "most small companies"—not just those that had never advertised online before.

Incorrect. This answer fails the first test—the conclusion doesn't have a moderate logical force keyword.

Incorrect. This answer passes the first test, but in checking for that, we can see that the premise here includes conditional language denoting a necessary condition ("only if") which isn't present in the stimulus, so we can rule this answer out.

Incorrect. This answer passes the first test, including moderate logical force keywords in both premise ("usually") and conclusion ("probably"). However, this answer has a shift that's not present in the stimulus. There, the premise and conclusion are both about anxiety levels falling (a relative measurement). Here, the premise is about financial situations improving (relative), but the conclusion is that the financial situation will become "strong" (an absolute measurement). Since this is a flawed shift that isn't present in the stimulus we can rule this answer choice out.