PrepTest 134

Incorrect. This answer reaches a conclusion that Ted's statements were wholly truthful, which isn't a conclusion that can be justified based on the principles in the stimulus.

Incorrect. The second principle justifies a conclusion that a statement is a lie; neither principle justifies a conclusion that something isn't a lie, so this answer concluding Tony's statement wasn't a lie is wrong.

Incorrect. Be careful—while we can't support the opening contention that Siobhan didn't lie, the argument also concludes that her statement wasn't wholly truthful, which is a conclusion that could be supported based on the first principle. However, it would need to be established that Siobhan either said something that wasn't true or she intended to deceive her supervisor. The answer states that her statement was true, and there's no indication she intended deception, so this answer isn't justified by the principles.

Correct. Argument or Facts:
Facts

Question Type:
Must Be True (Principle)

Stimulus Summary:
Wholly truthful → True AND not Intend deception
Intend deception OR Don't correct after learn it was misinterpreted → Lie

Answer Anticipation:
Must Be True (Principle) questions generally present two conditional principles in the stimulus. They have similar topics, and they allow for judgments to be made on a similar topic. Our goal is to correctly diagram these conditionals, get those "matching" judgments in the necessary condition, and then find an answer that establishes the sufficient condition(s) are met before concluding the necessary condition. We don't chain the conditionals together, even when possible, as we're trying to apply the conditionals, not infer from them.

Here, the first statement establishes what's necessary ("only if") for a statement to be wholly truthful. When something is a sufficient condition—when it has a necessary condition—we can't reach that conclusion, as there's nothing that guarantees a sufficient condition. So this first statement isn't in the form we want yet—we need to take the contrapositive to find a statement that will allow us to reach a conclusion about the truthfulness of a statement:
not True OR Intend deception → not Wholly truthful

The second conditional presents two individually sufficient conditions ("or") to determine something is a lie, so that statement is already in the format we can work with.

Note that, therefore, we can reach two conclusions—not wholly truthful and lie. Any other conclusion—mainly wholly truthful and not a lie—are unjustified, so any answer that reaches those conclusions can be immediately eliminated. To get our two conditionals we're working with together one more time before heading to the answers:
(1) not True OR Intend deception → not Wholly truthful
(2) Intend deception OR Don't correct after learn it was misinterpreted → Lie

Answer Explanation:
This answer concludes Walter's statement was a lie, which is a conclusion that can be supported by the second principle. It would need to be established either that he intended deception or that he didn't correct someone's misinterpretation of his statement. Since this answer states that he attempted to deceive the interviewer, that second principle applies to the situation and allows the conclusion to be reached, so this is the correct answer.

Key Takeaway:
For Must Be True (Principle) questions that present the principle(s) as a conditional (which will be almost all of them), get the relevant judgment into the necessary condition. Those necessary conditions are the only supportable conclusions, so you can eliminate any answer that reaches a different conclusion (usually a negation of a conclusion you can actually reach). Here, that allowed us to eliminate 3—4 of the answers without doing more work!

Incorrect. This answer reaches the conclusion that the tour guide's statements weren't a lie, which isn't justifiable based on either principle, so this answer is incorrect.