Logical reasoning PrepTest 135 · Section 2 · Question 15

Incorrect. not Rapid emergence from recession → not New investment. This is a reversal of the chain, so it doesn't justify the conclusion.

Incorrect. This answer is too weak to justify the definitive conclusion in the stimulus ("tend not to"). Ignoring that, it also brings in a connection that doesn't directly attach to the chain: Recession → not Change in support.

Incorrect. not Collective goals above individual goals → Rapid emergence from recession. Since not Rapid emergence from recession is the necessary condition of the conclusion/chain, establishing something that's sufficient for the opposite condition is out of the scope of this argument.

Correct. Argument or Facts:
Argument

Valid or Flawed:
Flawed

Question Type:
Strengthen with Sufficient Premise

Stimulus Summary:
Rapid emergence from recession → Substantial new investment
New investment → People confident in economic policy
Therefore - Collective goals above individual goals → not Rapid emergence from recession

Answer Anticipation:
Strengthen with Sufficient Premise questions frequently deal with conditional logic, so as soon as you see that first conditional indicator word—"requires"—you should start diagramming. Conditional logic-based Sufficient Premise questions generally fall into one of two camps—either they present several conditionals that chain together but miss a link in justifying the conclusion, or they apply a conditional to a specific situation and fail to establish the sufficient condition is met. Since each statement in this argument is a conditional statement, we're in the former camp.

As such, we should look at the conclusion to see what terms show up in the premises, and from there we should start building a chain. The conclusion discusses goals, which aren't mentioned in the premises, and not emerging rapidly from a recession, which is. So the correct answer will need to connect that sufficient condition about goals to a chain that builds to not Rapid emergence from recession. Let's start building the chain:
Collective goals above individual goals → ??? → not Rapid emergence from recession

In order to get the premise that shares a term with the conclusion to line up with that conclusion, we need to take the contrapositive:
not Substantial new investment → not Rapid emergence from recession

The other premise talks about new investment, not substantial new investment, but let's take the contrapositive to see what happens when we at least get it lined up to chain together:
not People confident in economic policy → not New investment

Well, if there's no new investment, then there's can't be substantial new investment, so these chain together:
not Confident → not New investment → not Substantial new investment → not Rapid emergence from recession

We've built a chain with all of our premises, and now we can see that the missing step is going to attach the new term in the conclusion to the beginning of the chain:
Collective goals above individual goals → not Confident
Confident → not Collective goals above individual goals

Answer Explanation:
Collective goals above individual goals → not Confident. This is the missing link that we needed for the chain in the premises to justify the conclusion. That lack of confidence guarantees no substantial new investment, thus guaranteeing no rapid emergence from the recession.

Key Takeaway:
Strengthen with Sufficient Premise questions frequently feature conditional logic, so you should be on the lookout for indicator words when in this question type. When that happens, one common pattern is for the entire argument to be conditional, and yet be flawed because there's a missing link. Start building the chain from the endpoints—the terms in the conclusion—to see where that missing link is and you should be able to anticipate an answer that's almost word-for-word the correct answer.

Incorrect. First, this answer is about the "most significant" factor, when the stimulus didn't discuss other factors or rank them. Second, this answer is about entering a recession, not emerging from one.