The local radio station will not win the regional ratings race this year. In the past ten years the station has never...

Ravi on February 8, 2020

@samihoover,

Let's look at (E) and (D).

Looking at the argument in the stimulus, it's basically saying that
because things have been a certain way in the past, they'll be like
that in the future. That's what we're looking for in the answer
choices.

(E) says, "Only trained swimmers are lifeguards, so it follows that
the next lifeguard at the local pool will be a trained swimmer."

The problem with (E) is that it has different reasoning and
conditional language.

Lifeguard - >Trained Swimmer

Next Lifeguard will be a trained swimmer

This argument is employing a conditional statement with temporal
reasoning. The general phrase for it would be something like "All Xs
are Ys. This thing is an X, therefore it will also be a Y." This
doesn't match what we have above for the stimulus, so it's out.

(D) says, "Recently stock prices have always been lower on Mondays.
Therefore they will be lower this coming Monday too."

(D) looks great because it contains the same type of temporal
reasoning that we see in the stimulus. Things have been a certain way
in the past (recent stock prices have historically always been lower
on Mondays); therefore, the stock prices will be like that on next
Monday. This matches well, so it's the correct answer choice.

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