Logical reasoning PrepTest 127 · Section 2 · Question 2

Correct. Argument or Facts:
Facts/Argument

Valid or Flawed:
NA/Flawed

Question Type:
Point of Agreement

Stimulus Summary:
D: Crime reduced → Punishment certain and sufficiently severe enough to make people think twice

R: Educational opportunities let people choose non-criminal path → Crime most effectively reduced. Therefore, you're wrong.

Answer Anticipation:
Both Denise and Reshmi talk about reducing crime, but they have vastly different means of accomplishing that, thus creating a large amount of disagreement. This is a Point of Agreement question, though (we hope you noted that!), so there needs to be overlap. While there is a concept (other than reducing crime) that shows up in both of their statements, it's hard to spot up front, so during the test, we'd likely head to the answers and spend time seeing if any of them shake something loose. We'll circle back in the Takeaways step to see what we could have anticipated better in the future!

Answer Explanation:
Denise talks about people "decid[ing]" against committing a crime, and Reshmi talks about people "choos[ing]" a non-criminal path, so they both agree that people can choose to commit a crime. This answer highlights a common element of the two speakers' statements, so it's the correct answer.

Key Takeaway:
First, be sure to note when a question is a Point of Agreement question instead of a Point at Issue question. The latter are much more common, so it's easy to think you're in the wrong question type. And, as we saw here, there are generally trap answers in Point of Agreement questions that seem like Points at Issue.

Second, circling back to the note from the Anticipation step, this is a question where we likely wouldn't find the correct answer until we got through a first pass. However, it does highlight an important note about Point of Agreement questions—they don't need to have an answer that focuses on a key element of the stimulus. Here, the correct answer dealt with a single word in each of the speakers' statements. When dealing with these questions in the future, we shouldn't feel tied to finding an overarching concept that is shared between the speakers—a single, smaller concept or shared term/idea could be enough to lead us to the right answer.

Incorrect. Neither speaker ranks crime against other issues facing society, so this answer is out of scope.

Incorrect. Reshmi believes that education is sufficient to reduce crime, so she would disagree with this statement. At first glance, it can seem as if Denise agrees with it, which would be enough to rule this answer out in this Point of Agreement question. However, be careful! Denise calls for consistent and sufficiently severe punishment, which isn't the same as fair punishment. If everyone who committed a crime were put to death, that would probably be sufficiently severe to make people think twice, but it certainly wouldn't be fair.

Incorrect. Denise doesn't discuss the motive behind crimes, so this answer is out of scope. Even Reshmi discusses crime as a means to securing a "comfortable" life, which is more than economic need.

Incorrect. Denise states this, while Reshmi believes that education is sufficient to reduce crime, so, if anything, this is a point at issue between them, not a point of agreement.