Roses always provide a stunning display of color, but only those flowers that smell sweet are worth growing in a gard...

SamA March 2, 2020

Hello @Dalaal,

I would have preferred to diagram answer choice E like this:

If it is a sweet smelling flower and is worth growing in a garden, then it provides a stunning display of color.
SS and WG - - - - - - - > SDC

The "and" helps me to see that there are two sufficient conditions, but not two separate conditional statements. I have never used a "dual" diagram like the one you created. I'll explain why.

Let's take the first part of that sentence by itself. "No sweet smelling flower is worth growing in a garden." You did this correctly: SS - - -> not WG.

But is this always true? No, because we are then given an exception with "unless it provides a stunning display of color."

Remember that necessary must always follow after sufficient. The exception we were given defeated your first conditional statement, so we shouldn't diagram it by itself like that. Rather, it should be expressed by:

SS and WG - - - - - - - - -> SDC

Whoever made the video may not have included the "and," but the meaning is the same.

Dalaal March 7, 2020

I understand why we wouldn't do a dual conditional statement but I don't quite comprehend how did you reach a conclusion that the sentence "a sweet smelling flower is worth growing in a garden" is the same as " a smelling flower and is worth growing"?

Ravi March 20, 2020

@Dalaal,

For (E), here's another way you could diagram it:

not stunning color-->sweet-smelling flower not worth growing in a garden

sweet-smelling flower worth growing in a garden-->stunning color

Either way, the stimulus doesn't say anything about whether or not
stunning displays of color have anything to do with being worth
growing, so this is why (E) is an incorrect answer choice.

Hope this helps. Let us know if you have any other questions!

Ravi March 20, 2020

@Dalaal, I just realized that my way of diagramming it is identical to the video. I wouldn't consider the sufficient condition here to be a conditional because it's already telling us that we're talking about the subcategory of sweet-smelling flowers that are worth growing in a garden. However, as Sam notes, you could diagram this either way and it would still lead to the same result. The reality is that detailed sufficient conditions of conditional statements can often be written as combined OR compound sufficient conditions. I tend to find that it's easier to write these statements as a larger, combined sufficient condition.