Experienced gardeners advise against planting snap peas after late April because peas do not develop properly in warm...

Mehran on November 28, 2017

Hi there, thanks for your post.

This is a Parallel Reasoning post. Let's first examine the reasoning in the stimulus.

We are given a general rule ("experienced gardeners advise against planting snap peas after late April") and an explanation for why that general rule is usually true ("because peas do not develop properly in warm weather"). Then we are given a reason to think there may be an exception to this rule ("this year, however, the weather was unusually cool into late June"), which leads to a conclusion ("therefore the fact that these snap peas were planted in mid-May is unlikely to result in crop failure despite the experts' warnings").

Answer choice (B) follows the same pattern. First, a general rule ("It is said that in this region these plants should be placed in windows facing north rather than south"), and an explanation for why that general rule is usually true ("African violets do not thrive in direct sunlight"). Then we are given a reason to think there may be an exception to this rule ("since these south-facing windows are well shaded by evergreen trees"), which leads to a conclusion ("the African violets placed in them are likely to grow satisfactorily").

Hope this helps! Please let us know if you have any additional questions.

LeeLarue on May 31, 2020

Thank you @Mehran! I have a question: I simplified the whole argument to
Stimulus:
~ develop properly -> warm weather
~ warm weather
_____________
Develop properly

With the same pattern in answer choice B)

~ thrive -> direct sunlight
~ direct sunlight
_____________
Thrive

Is this a good strategy? Or did I just get lucky?