Logical reasoning PrepTest 134 · Section 2 · Question 23

Incorrect. The principle is a universal claim that's intended to hold in all cases—that's what conditionals are.

Incorrect. The conclusion of the Application is about health, not whether Megan should be allowed to read or whether it's overall good for her. As such, its effect on things other than her health are out of scope.

Incorrect. The Application's conclusion is that something isn't healthy—that's not the same as unhealthy. Something could be neither healthy nor unhealthy, so this answer could be correct, but the Application doesn't make the mistake of negating "Healthy" to its opposite (unhealthy) instead of its negation (not healthy). Even if you didn't draw that distinction, a conditional about what is healthy will also address what is not/unhealthy when the contrapositive is taken.

Correct. Argument or Facts:
Argument

Valid or Flawed:
Flawed

Question Type:
Errors in Reasoning (Principle)

Stimulus Summary:
P: Healthy for kids to do educational activity → not Detract from social development

A: Megan reads alone, so it's not healthy for her to read

Answer Anticipation:
Looking at the application, the conclusion reached about Megan's reading is that it is not healthy. The sufficient condition of the principle is about the healthfulness of an activity, but we can only reach conclusions that are in the necessary conditions. But wait a second—this isn't an illegal reversal! The sufficient condition of the principle is that an activity is healthy, so we can contrapose it to get a principle that would allow for the conclusion to be drawn in the Application:
Detract from social development → not Healthy

In order to reach the conclusion that the Application does, it would need to be established that Megan's reading detracts from her social development. Instead, what it establishes is that she's not interacting with other people while she's reading. That doesn't guarantee that it detracts from her social development—maybe Megan needs that alone time to recharge, and if she were forced to socialize all day she'd withdraw and that would detract from her social development.

So the application assumes that anything that pulls you away from socializing detracts from your social development—let's find an answer that discusses that flaw.

Answer Explanation:
This answer addresses the equivocation made in the argument—failing to distinguish between spending less time socializing and detracting from social development. This is the correct answer.

Key Takeaway:
When dealing with the application of a conditional/principle to an individual case, start by seeing if you can get the conclusion of the application as the necessary condition of the principle. If you can't, then you've discovered your flaw. If you can, then the flaw is likely that the argument equivocates between the sufficient condition guaranteeing that conclusion and a similar detail established in the situation described.

Incorrect. This is the illegal reversal answer but, as we said in the Summary, the argument takes a necessary condition for an activity's being healthy to be a negated sufficient condition for it being not healthy—in other words, it takes the contrapositive, which isn't a flaw.