PrepTest 140

Incorrect. First, there's a gap between scientists communicating with the public, and good communication between the scientific community and the public. Second, this answer choice reverses the connection between the ideas presented in the stimulus (Good comms → Excited youth).

Incorrect. The stimulus doesn't discuss a spectrum of flourishing—just that if the community is flourishing, then the youth are excited about becoming scientists. In stating that the extent the scientific community is flourishing depends principally on the number of youths who are excited about becoming scientists, this answer is introducing several ideas not present in the stimulus.

Correct. Argument or Facts:
Facts

Question Type:
Must Be True

Stimulus Summary:
Successful economy → Flourishing scientific community
Flourishing scientific community → Many young excited enough to want to become scientists
Many young excited enough to want to become scientists → Good communication between scientists and public

Answer Anticipation:
The biggest trick in this stimulus is diagramming the statements correctly. Each statement brings up something necessary for something else—those necessary things are . . . necessary conditions! That's how we ended up with the conditionals in our stimulus, and we can see that they chain together, so let's simplify and combine them, and then take the contrapositive:

Successful econ → Flourishing sci → Excited youth → Good comms not Good comms → not Excited youth → not Flourishing sci → not Successful econ

Answer Explanation:
not Good comms → not Successful econ. This answer choice reflects the contrapositive of the conditional chain, so it's correct. Note that scientists never communicating with the public guarantees that there can't be good communication between those groups.

Key Takeaway:
For Must Be True questions based in conditional logic, invest the time in diagramming out the statements and rereading those statements against your diagram to make sure you got it right. Being strong in conditional logic can make this difficult question something you get correct quickly.

Incorrect. The argument talks about many youths being excited enough to resolve to become scientists, not that most of them actually do, so this answer can be ruled out because of that degree and term shift.

Incorrect. This answer is about success in a scientific endeavor—a concept not mentioned in the stimulus and thus out of scope.