Although all contemporary advertising tries to persuade, only a small portion of contemporary advertising can be cons...

Tony June 22, 2019

Me too

Victoria June 22, 2019

Hi @izyat and @Tony,

This is a parallel reasoning question. We are looking for the answer choice which uses the same method of reasoning employed in the passage.

Let's start by going through the passage.

"All contemporary advertising tries to persuade"

Contemporary advertising - > tries to persuade

Does not try to persuade - > not contemporary advertising

"Only a small portion [some] of contemporary advertising can be considered morally reprehensible."

Contemporary advertising - some - morally reprehensible

Morally reprehensible - some - contemporary advertising

"It nevertheless follows that some attempts at persuasion can be regarded as morally reprehensible"

Before we diagram this, can we draw this conclusion from the information that we have diagrammed above? Remember that the arrow must point AWAY from the quantifier.

Morally reprehensible - some - contemporary advertising - > tries to persuade

We can then use the transitive property to conclude:

Morally reprehensible - some - tries to persuade [attempts at persuasion]

This is the reverse of the conclusion drawn in the passage but remember that 'some' statements are reversible. Therefore:

Tries to persuade [attempts at persuasion] - some - morally reprehensible

This is a good question to test your ability to properly diagram S&N statements, quantifier statements, and their contrapositives.

So, what did the passage do?

It used the transitive property to draw a conclusion based on a S&N statement and the reverse of a quantifier statement. Then, it reversed this transitive conclusion to draw its final conclusion. So, we are looking for the answer choice which directly parallels this.

Let's go through answer choice C.

"A good manager always makes important decisions on the basis of adequate data."

Good manager - > important decisions based on data

Does not make important decisions based on data - > not good manager

"Some managers fail to do this"

Managers - some - do not make important decisions based on data

We can see that this passage then uses the transitive property to conclude:

Managers - some - do not make important decisions based on data - > not good manager

Managers - some - not good managers

This is similar to the reasoning employed by the stimulus; however, notice that the contrapositive of the S&N statement was used to draw the conclusion. This is not the same as the original passage and, therefore, C is not the correct answer.

Now, let's go through answer choice E.

"Some sonnets are characterized by such pluralism [thematic pluralism]"

Sonnets - some - characterized by thematic pluralism

Characterized by thematic pluralism - some - sonnets

"All sonnets are short poems"

Sonnets - > short poems

Not short poem - > not sonnet

We can see that this passage then uses the transitive property to conclude:

Characterized by thematic pluralism - some - sonnets - > short poems

Characterized by thematic pluralism - some - short poems

Short poems - some - characterized by thematic pluralism

Answer choice E is identical to the passage in the method of reasoning that it uses. It uses the transitive property to draw a conclusion based on a S&N statement and the reverse of a quantifier statement. Then, it reversed this transitive conclusion to draw its final conclusion.

There are many steps to answering this question. Make sure that you fully diagram all statements and their contrapositives from the original passage so that you have a complete understanding of the reasoning used to draw the conclusion before addressing the question stem and answer choices.

Hope this is helpful! Please let us know if you have any further questions.