PrepTest 118

Correct. Argument or Facts:
Argument

Valid or Flawed:
Flawed

Question Type:
Flawed Parallel Reasoning

Stimulus Summary:
Experimental psychology → Application/interpretation of statistics
not Training in statistics → not Understand application/interpretation of statistics
Therefore — The more statistics training, the better at experimental psychology research

Answer Anticipation:
This is an interesting stimulus. It presents two conditionals that do chain together—they establish that training in statistics is required for experimental psychology (take the contrapositive of the second statement to see why). However, after establishing that, the argument then draws a non—conditional conclusion—the more of the requirement one has, the better they'll be at the sufficient condition.

But that's not how conditionals work—there's no indication that there's such a positive relationship between the two. As such, we should look for a similar answer that establishes one thing as a requirement for another, but then falsely concludes that they're positively correlated—the more of the requirement, the more of the sufficient condition.

Answer Explanation:
This answer establishes a requirement (without it . . . "; love and support of others) and then it concludes that the more of that requirement one has the more of the sufficient condition (happiness) they'll have. Same flaw means this is the right answer. Note that this wouldn't be correct in a Parallel Reasoning question because it's missing a second conditional premise and it includes different quantifiers but those elements are extraneous to the flaw which jumps from conditional language to comparative language.

Key Takeaway:
Positive (and negative) correlations are specific relationships that are important to track on the LSAT. They're a little bit comparative a little bit conditional so they carry a lot of weight and specificity behind them!

Incorrect. The premise here establishes a positive correlation ("the longer . . . the more") while the stimulus was flawed because it concluded such a relationship without establishing one in the premises. This argument therefore doesn't have the same flaw.

Incorrect. First, this answer establishes the main cause of arteriosclerosis—that's a causal statement and it's not conditional (the main cause may not guarantee the outcome). Additionally, the conclusion isn't a positive correlation—it talks about being "at risk" not "the higher one's risk." This answer is therefore incorrect.

Incorrect. The conclusion here isn't a positive correlation—it's a conditional, just as the premise is. Therefore, the jump from the stimulus isn't matched in this answer and we can rule it out.

Incorrect. The premise here does establish a conditional relationship ("enable") but the conclusion isn't a positive correlation—it's also a conditional (more or less; "needs little more then" is almost a conditional but it certainly doesn't match the stimulus).