#22 - If the budget does not allow for more dairy inspectors

[Emily Haney-Caron]

Hi 15veries,

I think you might be getting too caught up in looking for "buzz words" here and missing the bigger picture. You're almost never going to be able to be confident you've selected the right answer choice if you go in looking for a specific word (like "none") without really thinking through the logic behind the stimulus and answer choices. Keep in mind that, with this question, you're trying to justify the conclusion. The difference between D and E is "none" vs. "most." So, you have to look at the logic of the stimulus to figure out which one is correct. You want the answer choice that will finish making the argument. Start by identifying the conclusion and the premises. Once you've done that, look for the logical leap; what hole in the reasoning needs to be plugged before the argument is solid? Prephrase that logical leap for yourself, then look for an answer choice that matches it. Once you've done that, post here with what you come up with--we can help fine tune as needed. That way, you'll get a chance to work through this one a bit. Walk us through the process, so we can help you figure out where in that process you got off-track.

[avengingangel]

So I chose E, and I see how D and E are very similar and also how they are different.

However, after reading the explanation, it still seems to me that E would need to be correct answer ?? Mainly bc of the "More Train" journey rules. This is how I diagrammed the argument:

Premise1: more hired meet standards
Premise2 & Concl: more hired polluted

So, it seems I need to look for the missing link of: meet standards polluted.

Written all the way out, the complete argument would look like: more hired meet standards polluted. And then you can make the formal logic inference of: more hired polluted, aka the conclusion! And bc More Train rules stipulate you can't have an A B C situation, the "B" HAS to be an all (or, really a "none" here) arrow! I'm takin this straight from the lessons in the book—can you please tell me what I'm doin wrong here ?? Thanks.

[Steven Palmer]

Hi avengingangel,

I completely see your logic here, and it definitely makes a lot of sense! The key to this question, in my mind, is that we need to find what has to be assumed to make the conclusion true. You're exactly right with the argument steps, so let's focus on the missing link: from "meet standards to pollution."

Answer choice (D) does exactly this, by restating the conclusion and telling us that most of the water will become polluted (necessary prong) if most of the large dairies do not meet the standards (sufficient prong).

Answer choice (E) is wrong because it says that most of the water will become polluted if NONE of the large dairies meet the federal standards. We don't want this, because then if every single large dairy in this town does not meet the standards except for one, then we cannot safely say that most of the water is likely to be polluted. I think you're getting bogged down in formal logic here, with the tricky word, "most", while the answer is slightly simpler than that. We just want to follow exactly what the stimulus tells us, which is: if "most large dairies do not meet the standards", then the water will "likely become polluted."

Hope this helps!
Steven

[avengingangel]

OK, thanks, it does. But then aren't you also saying the "Most Train" rule does not work here ??

[Robert Carroll]

avengingangel,

Formal logic inferences involving "most" statements are not relevant in this instance. In order to see why, let's take a hypothetical situation where you have a statement involving most:

B L

Now let's say "B" is "books" and "L" is "written in Latin"

Then the statement means "most books are written in Latin."

Compare that to the premises and conclusion you diagrammed here:

"more hired meet standards"

This is not an application of "most". An application of most says that most of the things contained in the group on the left side of the arrow have the quality described on the right side of the arrow. Here, instead, the "most" you've used in the diagram is actually a conditional connecting a sufficient and necessary condition, and the necessary condition itself contains a "most" statement.

In formal logic terms, the way to diagram this would be as follows:

more hired (large dairies meet standards)

But in formal logic terms, tracking the "most" statement in this way is not really particularly helpful. Thus, a better way to diagram is this:

more hired at least half meet standards

With the "most" statements fully embedded in one condition of each premise/conclusion, inferences involving "most" drop out of the picture. The situation that remains is an incomplete chain of conditionals, where the correct answer will be a conditional completing the chain. We know that most dairies will not meet the standards. The conclusion claims that most of the drinking water will become polluted. We want an answer that says, roughly, "if most dairies don't meet standards, most drinking water will become polluted." We don't have premises that indicate that none of the dairies meet standards, so answer choice (E) does not have a sufficient condition already contained in the premises, which means it does not provide a connection that completes the chain.

Robert Carroll

[Vicky7411]

Hi,

I understand why D is the correct answer, but I got really tripped up on this question with the word "most." I diagrammed the stimulus wrong and it took me a long time to figure it out because none of it made sense to me. This is what I did:

Budget allow more dairy inspector hires Federal standards not met by large dairies

Budget allow more dairy inspector hires

Conclusion: Drinking water likely to be polluted

With this diagram, I didn't know how to connect the premises and conclusion. With the right diagram, it would be a simple question for me. I noticed that I make this mistake on other questions. I am over-eager when I see the words "some" and "most" in stimuli and I end up diagramming it wrong. How do I know when a some or most relationship triggers and when it doesn't?

[Rachael Wilkenfeld]

Hi Vicky,

It's hard to know when some of these words have logical weight. It takes practice. Just like every "if" isn't conditional, the "most" here doesn't link in to formal logic. We can't really put the formal logic inside of the conditional in a clear way. Robert drew the way we would do so above but it's hard to work with.

In formal logic, the most describes the relationship between two categories/things. Most pizza is yummy. Pizza yummy. Most episodes of the Handmaid's Tale are horrifying. Episodes horrifying. Most computers have keyboards. Computers keyboards.

The real decision on diagramming needs to be the relevance to the logic. What is really driving this question? Is it the "most" or is it the conditional relationship? That should guide your diagramming. The term "most" still has importance. It impacts the conditional relationship as well as the conclusion. But the driver of this stimulus is conditional.

Hope that helps!
Rachael