Logical reasoning PrepTest 146 · Section 2 · Question 9

Incorrect. The falsity of the information was relevant in the first conditional—the one about whether she would keep her promise to not reveal the informant's identity. It doesn't relate to the conditional that would lead to the conclusion, so this answer choice doesn't allow that conclusion to follow logically.

Incorrect. not Concern public safety → not Editor forces her to reveal source. This answer is the negation of a potentially correct answer, and it features a term shift (since it's not established that safety violations at the power plant concern public safety—maybe it just impacts the workers).

Correct. Argument or Facts:
Argument

Valid or Flawed:
Flawed

Question Type:
Strengthen with Sufficient Premise

Stimulus Summary:
not Information false → Promised to not reveal identity
Ordered by judge/editor → Reveal identity
Info is about plant safety
Therefore, even if the info is true, the journalist will reveal her source's identity.

Answer Anticipation:
Since the conclusion reached is that the journalist will reveal the informant's identity, the second conditional needs to be invoked in order to justify the conclusion. In order to trigger that conditional, it must be established that the journalist was ordered by a judge or her editor to do so. While the correct answer might establish that she was ordered to do so, it's more likely that that will be tied into another premise. Since the only other premise is that the information is about plant safety, the correct answer will likely state that if information from a secret source concerns plant safety, then a judge (or the journalist's editor) will order her to reveal her source.

Answer Explanation:
This answer choice ensures that the journalist will reveal her informant's identity. The information does concern the plant, so this answer ensures that a judge will order the journalist to reveal the source, and the second conditional establishes that she'll follow the judge's order.

Key Takeaway:
In our anticipation, we could have stopped at predicting an answer stating that the journalist would be ordered by a judge or her editor to reveal the source's identity. However, since there was additional information that seemed unrelated to the rest of the argument, we took the extra step of connecting that information to the order by the judge/editor.

Incorrect. Since the conclusion is said to hold "even if the information is accurate," the accuracy of the information is irrelevant to it.

Incorrect. The understanding of the informant is immaterial to a conclusion about what the journalist will do, barring a rule establishing that the informant's understanding determines her actions.