PrepTest 111

Incorrect. Very close! However, the relationship here isn't "the older the person, the more wise they are." It's that a single person gets wiser as they get older. As such, their starting level of wisdom is important, making this answer both flawed and not parallel to the stimulus.

Incorrect. The positive correlation here has two parts to it, so it's not parallel to the stimulus where there's just one element on each "side" of the relationship.

Incorrect. This answer has a relationship comparing two groups over a time period—it doesn't establish a positive correlation. It therefore isn't parallel.

Correct. Argument or Facts:
Argument

Valid or Flawed:
Valid

Question Type:
Parallel Reasoning

Stimulus Summary:
Higher altitude = Thinner air
Mexico City altitude > Panama City altitude
Therefore - Mexico City air thinness > Panama City air thinness

Answer Anticipation:
In this Parallel Reasoning question, the argument establishes a positive correlation between two things, and then it applies it to a specific comparison. Let's look for an answer that follows the same pattern:
More A = More B
X has more A than Y
Therefore - X has more B than Y

Answer Explanation:
This argument starts with a positive correlation between the age of a tree and the number of rings it has. It then establishes that one tree is older than another, and it concludes that the first tree has more rings than the former. This argument follows the same pattern of reasoning as the stimulus, so this is the correct answer.

Key Takeaway:
It would not shock us in the least if you ended up stuck between (A) and (D) in this question, as they're both very similar and sound a lot like the stimulus. When that happens, compare the answers to each other to identify the difference between them, and then see how that difference plays into the logic. Here, noting that the positive correlation in (A) is about "As one gets older" while (D) is about "The older the tree" could have allowed you to see that (D) is closer to the stimulus than (A).

Incorrect. This argument starts with a positive correlation between the size of a language's vocab and the difficulty in learning it. However, it then compares two languages over the second metric (difficulty), not the first (vocab size), so it reverses the logic from the stimulus and is thus wrong.