If Juan went to the party, it is highly unlikely that Maria would have enjoyed the party. But in fact it turned out t...

Ravi on December 20, 2018

@GLEE,

The stimulus maps out to

P: Juan went to party - >Probably Maria didn't enjoy the party

P: Maria did enjoy the party

C: Juan probably didn't attend the party

(Note that this isn't a valid argument because the initial necessary condition of Maria probably not enjoying the party still includes the possibility that she did enjoy the party, so the second premise is not a true negation of the necessary condition of the first premise)

(C) is tricky, but it doesn't match up to the pattern of reasoning in the stimulus.

The first sentence of (C) does mirror the pattern of reasoning in the stimulus:

Fair - ->Person who won not likely to win

Person won

From this, if (C) stated in its conclusion that the lottery was probably unfair, then we would have the same pattern of reasoning as provided in the stimulus. However, (C) then states

Unfair - ->This person would have been likely to win

and then concludes that the lottery was probably unfair

See what (C) does to make it not match the stimulus? It adds an additional premise that commits a logical fallacy. The additional premise of Unfair - ->This person would have been likely to win would not mean if the person won, the lottery was probably unfair.

The error in this additional premise is one of confusing sufficient and necessary conditions with each other.

(D) maps to

P: Missed bus - >Probably not on time

P: On time

C: Probably didn't miss the bus

(D) matches the pattern of reasoning in the stimulus and even includes the probabilistic wording that was in the stimulus. This is our answer.

Does this help? Let us know if you have more questions!