Sufficient & Necessary Questions - - Question 48

Only experienced salespeople will be able to meet the company's selling quota. Thus, I must not count as an experienc...

Mariana February 27, 2019

Answer choice B and C

I am coming up with the same flawed pattern of reasoning for B and C. I see from the message board that B is the correct answer, so please help me determine what I am doing wrong in answer choice c so that it can be eliminated as an option. Here is how I have it graphed out: PR: EA --> OG Not OG ---> Not EA P: Not EA C: Not OG

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Ravi March 1, 2019

@Mariana,

Happy to help.

Answer choice (C) is actually pretty different from answer (B)

Answer choice (B) correctly mirrors the flaw of the stimulus.

The stimulus maps to

quota - ->experienced salesperson

and the conclusion the writer makes is

/quota - ->/experienced salesperson

The write makes the flaw of invoking the failure of the sufficient
condition to conclude the failure of the necessary condition. This is
incorrect logic.

Moving on to (C), it states, "only oceanographers enjoy the Atlantic
in midwinter. Thus, we may expect that Gerald does not enjoy the
Atlantic in midwinter, since he is not an oceanographer"

This translates to

Premise: Enjoy Atlantic midwinter - ->oceanographer

Conclusion /oceanographer - >/Enjoy Atlantic midwinter

The conclusion of (C) is a valid contrapositive of the premise. This
is sound reasoning, and this does not parallel the flawed reasoning in
either the stimulus or in (B). You actually correctly diagrammed (C).
It sounds like you just might have failed to see that (C) has valid
reasoning, whereas (B) does not. Let's look at (B) now.

(B) says, "Only music lovers take this class. Thus, since Hillary is
not taking this class, she apparently does not love music."

(B) can be diagrammed to

Take class - >music lover

/take class - >/music lover

This is a flawed argument. Do you see how it's exactly the same flaw
as we found in the stimulus? The argument is incorrectly invoking the
failure of the sufficient condition to conclude the failure of the
necessary condition. Thus, (B) is the correct answer choice.

Does this make sense? Let us know if you have any other questions!

erica August 11, 2021

hi! how are B and C different I really don't see it.

my diagram for B:

P: TC ---> MS

P: NOT TC

C: NOT MS

and my diagram for C:
PR: EAW ----> O

PR: NOT EAW

CL: NOT O

pls help! thank you.

Ravi February 6, 2022

Your diagram for B is good. For your diagram for C, @erica, not O is the premise, and not EAW is the conclusion. Not O is the premise because it comes after the word "since," which is a premise indicator.

Ravi February 6, 2022

So the correct diagram for C is

PR: EAW-->O

PR: NOT O

C: NOT EAW