Logical reasoning PrepTest 142 · Section 2 · Question 17

Correct. Argument or Facts:
Argument

Valid or Flawed:
Flawed

Question Type:
Argument Structure

Stimulus Summary:
Standard antibiotics—One ingredient
Herbal antibacterials—Several ingredients
Conclusion—Herbal antibacterials are more likely than antibiotics to keep working against resistant bacteria
Analogy—Bacteria developing a resistance is like a cook preparing a single meal—it's easier to please one person than it is to please several dozen

Answer Anticipation:
This is a very convoluted analogy, so we're going to have to identify all the pieces one at a time and relate them to elements in the analogy to find which one lines up with the standard antibiotic, as the question stems asks us to find.

Starting off with the argument, we have the antibiotics, the antibacterials, the bacteria, and resistance. The analogy has the cook, the difficulty in pleasing people, the single guest, and the several dozen guests. Luckily, that's four elements apiece, so we've got our players!

The analogy starts by directly relating the bacteria and it's difficulty in developing resistance to an herbal antibacterial to a cook's difficulty in prepping a meal that will please several dozen guests. That means the bacteria is the cook; the resistance is the meal; and the herbal antibacterial is the several dozen guests. While this may seem a little strained, the antibacterial was earlier noted as having several ingredients, so that lines up with the "several" dozen guests. That leaves the standard antibiotics to be the single guest.

We can think through how this makes sense, but we've got the language lined up and so we can head to the answers to find the one that says the standard antibiotic is analogous to the single guest. But to dig in, this makes sense because, if the bacteria is the cook, both the bacteria and the chef have an easier time addressing a single guest/ingredient than multiple guests/ingredients.

Answer Explanation:
The antibiotic has a single ingredient, much as this is a single guest, and the bacteria/cook has an easier time developing a resistance to/pleasing a single guest.

Key Takeaway:
When tracking an analogy, identify the pieces and start to use logic and the language to find the easy-to-relate pieces. From there, you can start to develop a sense for how the analogy works and what pieces are left, and then relate them to each other. This isn't just an LR strategy—there are RC questions that ask you to analogize from the passage, and identifying the pieces and relating them to the elements in the answer is the proper approach there, as well.

Incorrect. Several dozen guests are analogous to the herbal antibacterials with their several active ingredients, and both are harder to deal with.

Incorrect. The pleasure experienced by that single guest is akin to resistance developed to a single active ingredient.

Incorrect. The analogy starts by analogizing the cook and the bacteria.

Incorrect. The ingredients available to the cook aren't really mentioned in the stimulus, but they'd presumably be whatever "makes up" resistance.