Radio airplay restrictions are nationally imposed regulations. The City Club has compiled a guide to all nationally i...

Naz on October 1, 2015

Conclusion: the City Club's guide covers radio airplay restrictions.

Why? Radio airplay restrictions are nationally imposed regulations. The City Club has compiled a guide to all nationally imposed regulations other than those related to taxation or to labor law, neither of which Radio airplay restrictions apply to.

So: if it is neither related to taxation nor to labor law, then the guide applies to it.

P1: T or LL ==> not A
A ==> not T and not LL

P2: not T and not LL
_________________

C: A

This is an invalid contrapositive argument. We are invoking the necessary condition of our contrapositive to conclude the sufficient condition. We can never infer anything from a necessary condition. This this reasoning is flawed.

Answer choice (B) has the same exact pattern of reasoning.

Conclusion: the Garden Club awards a prize each year for coreopsis.

Why? Coreopsis is a perennial. The Garden Club awards a prize each year for each perennial other than those that are shrubs or not native to North America, neither of which apply to coreopsis.

P1: S or not NNA ==> not AP
AP ==> not S and NNA

P2: not S and NNA
_________________________

C: AP

Again, just as in the argument in the passage, we have an invalid contrapositive argument. The necessary condition of the contrapositive invokes the sufficient condition.

Hope that clears thing up! Please let us know if you have any other questions.

alymathieu on December 28, 2018

If this is an invalid argument why is it not in the flawed parallel reasoning section then

Ravi on December 29, 2018

@alymathieu,

Great question. This problem is a parallel reasoning question, so it's
correctly categorized. Although Naz's analysis gets us to the correct
answer, I disagree with her that this is an invalid argument. I think
it's valid.

We're first told that radio airplay restrictions are nationally
imposed regulations

RAR - ->NIR

In the stimulus, we're told that the City Club has compiled a guide to
all national imposed regulations except those related to taxation or
labor law. We can write this as

NIR and not T and not L - ->Guide

We're then told that radio airplay restrictions are related neither to
taxation nor to labor law. Therefore, we know that radio airplay
restrictions are a subset of NIR that are not T and not L.

RAR - -> not T and not L

The conclusion of the stimulus says that the City Club's guide covers
radio airplay stations. We know this to be true since the radio
airplay restrictions are a subset of the NIR that are not T and not L

RAR - ->Guide

The basic format of this argument is

A→B

B + /C + /D → E

A→/C + /D
———–
A→E

All As are Bs. We gathered a list of all Bs except Cs or Ds. A is
neither a C nor a D. Therefore A is included in the list.

This is the exact structure that we see in answer B.

C - ->P

P + /Shrub + Native - ->Prize

C - ->/Shrub + Native

Therefore, C - ->P

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