Had the party's economic theories been sound and had it succeeded in implementing its program, the inflation rate wou...

Ravi on April 29, 2019

@Wills,

Happy to help.

The question says, "The flawed reasoning in which one of the following
arguments most closely resembles the flawed reasoning in the argument
above?"

You asked about (A) vs. (C).

(A) says, "If the people who inhabited the valley for so long had been
invaded, or if there had been a dramatic climatic change, there would
have been changes in the valley's architecture. But architecture in
the valley remained the same throughout their stay. Thus, the valley
people must not have been invaded at any time during their stay."

The problem with (A) is that in its sufficient condition, there is an "or."

Invaded or Dramatic Climate Change - >Changes in valley's architecture

This means that if we take the contrapositive, then neither or the
sufficient conditions would occur. The argument says that the
necessary condition didn't occur, so then we know that neither
sufficient condition occurs. This is a valid argument, so there's no
way it can be the correct answer.

(C) says, "If the company had succeeded in selling its subsidiaries
and used the cash to purchase the new patent, its stock price would
have doubled in the last two years. But the price of the stock did not
increase in that time. Thus, the company must have failed to sell its
subsidiaries."

With (C), the premise structure of it and the stimulus are identical.
(C)'s conclusion makes the claim that the company failed to sell its
subsidiaries. However, there were to sufficient conditions. It's
possible that the company may not have used the cash to buy the new
patent. This flaw mirrors the flaw we see in the stimulus, so it's the
correct answer choice. Both the stimulus and (C) have two sufficient
conditions. The necessary condition is failed, which means that at one
of the sufficient conditions was failed, but not necessarily both.

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