Logical reasoning PrepTest 149 · Section 1 · Question 6

Incorrect. This answer has a timeline issue—since something hasn't happened in the past, it doesn't need to happen in the present/future. There's no equivalent timeline issue in the stimulus.

Incorrect. This answer is an illegal negation while also ignoring middle ground, going from the best to the worst mediators and the longest to the shortest track records. Those don't run parallel to the stimulus.

Incorrect. This answer does have conditional logic, but it brings in causality ("factor"), so it's not our answer.

Correct. Argument or Facts:
Argument

Valid or Flawed:
Flawed

Question Type:
Flawed Parallel Reasoning

Stimulus Summary:
High Resale Value → Well Maintained
Therefore, Well Maintained → High Resale Value

Answer Anticipation:
This stimulus throws around a lot of conditional language ("The only"; "any"), and so it likely has a conditional logic flaw. Diagramming out the stimulus should show us what type of flaw while also providing a template for finding the correct answer.

Let's start with that first sentence—the premise—as it's a tricky conditional keyword to diagram. "Only" introduces a necessary condition, but "the only" is a little trickier because it mixes up the grammar. That phrase actually applies to the later clause—here, well-maintained cars. In other words, what comes immediately after the phrase is the sufficient condition, even though it's applying to the necessary!

If that's a bit confusing, think about this example: The only people to win a Super Bowl MVP award are football players. Can we say that if you're a football player you've won a Super Bowl MVP? Absolutely not—treating what follows immediately after "the only" as the necessary condition yields the wrong conditional. When the phrase talks about "the only people" here, it's referring to the football players—it's necessary to be a football player to win a Super Bowl MVP. So this diagrams as Super Bowl MVP → Football player. Because of wonky grammar, "only" is still applying to the necessary condition, but it is placed immediately in front of the sufficient condition.

If that's still confusing you, you can always go with the blunt rule—"The only" immediately precedes the sufficient condition.

With that out of the way, we can see that the conclusion (a much easier statement to diagram!) is a reversal of that, so we should find an answer that has the same reversal:

A → B
Therefore: B → A

Answer Explanation:
City dweller → Prefer waterfall to traffic jams
Therefore Ð Prefer waterfall to traffic jams → City dweller
Same illegal reversal, so this is our answer.

Key Takeaway:
Conditional language in a Flawed Parallel Reasoning question almost always means a conditional logic flaw. Diagram out the argument so you have a template by which to analyze the answer choices.

Incorrect. This answer has a shift from relative language ("need . . . decreases") to non-relative language ("no need"), which is a different flaw than the one in the stimulus.