Logical reasoning PrepTest 135 · Section 1 · Question 16

Question prompt

Activist: Any member of Remaining source text redacted.
Why the credited answer is right

Credited answer: B

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

Argument or Facts

Argument

Valid or Flawed

Flawed

Question Type

Strengthen with Sufficient Premise Questions

Stimulus Summary

Member of council → Vote against OR Abstain
Everyone abstains → Matter decided by voters
Therefore - At least one member should vote “Nay”

Answer Anticipation

This is an interesting conditional logic-based Strengthen with Sufficient Premise question! Normally when there are multiple conditional statements, we can chain some together and note a gap in the logic. Here, however, they’re less chain-able and more of a set of facts that create a situation that we need to find the gap in.
As with any question where a pattern is broken a bit, we should start with the conclusion and work backwards. The Activist wants at least one member to vote, “Nay,” on the proposal. Why? Well, she justifies that by saying that everyone abstaining from voting results in the matter being decided by voters.
So since she concludes that at least one member should vote, “Nay,” she must believe that the outcome from everyone abstaining is bad - in other words, she must believe that the voters shouldn’t decide this matter. Let’s find an answer choice establishing that.

Answer choices

  1. A
    If all the members Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice A is not credited
    This answer feels right since the Activist clearly doesn’t want this proposal to pass. However, the argument isn’t based around that - especially since the Activist never explicitly states that the proposal shouldn’t pass! Instead, it’s based around whether the proposal goes before the voters. This answer doesn’t address that, so it’s out of scope of the argument.
  2. B
    The proposal should not Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice B matches the stem
    If every member of the council abstains from voting, the city’s voters will decide the matter. If, as this answer states, that shouldn’t happen, then not every member should abstain. And since they should all vote, “Nay,” or abstain, this answer allows the conclusion that at least one should vote against the proposal, thus preventing the matter from being decided by the voters, is valid.
  3. C
    No members of the Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice C is not credited
    This answer still doesn’t get us to at least one member voting against it to prevent it from going to the voters.
  4. D
    If not every member Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice D is not credited
    This is the negation of the main premise of the argument, so it doesn’t justify the conclusion.
  5. E
    If one member of Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice E is not credited
    Any answer that starts with the conclusion as the sufficient condition can be immediately eliminated - the argument ends with the conclusion.

What this tests

Question analytics

Based on historical answer selection rates for this question.

Answer choice distribution

  1. A 20%
  2. B Credited 59%
  3. C 5%
  4. D 14%
  5. E 2%

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