#21 - Bank deposits are credited on the date of the

[Humblesmurph]

Knowing something happened in the past is not a logical flaw. The question does not specify how she knows. Knowing a past event is fundamentally different from "knowing" a future event. George cannot be said to know future event X (Helen will resign) in the same manner that Alicia knows past event Y (the deposit was made by 3pm).

The statement "Alicia knows..." is not inconsistent with her having completed the deposit herself or her witnessing someone else make the deposit. She could have a receipt of the transaction. Again, we can be certain that past events happened if we can be sure of anything. There is nothing in the question to cast doubt on the matter of fact statement "Alicia knows..."

On what basis are we to say "Alicia only THINKS she knows the deposit was made by 3pm" when the question plainly states that she knows and gives no further in formation?

[Adam Tyson]

What you may be overlooking here, Humblesmurph, is that there is no evidence in the argument that Alicia knows the policy regarding when deposits are credited. She knows that she made the deposit, but that doesn't mean she knows when it will be credited. In the same way, there is no evidence in answer C that George knows that his promotion is dependent on Helen's resignation. He knows she is resigning, but may be unaware of how that will affect his chances for promotion.

I'm not sure what you are saying about Alicia thinking she made the deposit. She definitely knows she made it, per the stimulus, as you pointed out, but that's not the issue. The issue is that we have no evidence that she knows the policy regarding when it will be credited. It also has nothing to do with past vs future. I hope my explanation clears things up for you!

[Humblesmurph]

Thank you. Very helpful. I have realized that the only questions I get wrong are parallel reasoning questions. I get most of them correct, but occasionally I get tricked badly and pick answers that should have easily been eliminated.

[Anfernee9320]

Good afternoon,

Quick question! When reading the analysis for questions like this one, I’ve noticed a reference to “Repeat conditional form.” This form is why answers (D) and (E) are incorrect. What chapter is the repeat conditional form covered in? Thank you!

[Adam Tyson]

If you are in one of our courses, Anfernee9320, you should find some mention of repeat forms in the Additional Reading for Lesson 2. There's also a brief mention in the Lesson 2 material in the class itself, including in the wrong answers to the question about people who are Red/Green Colorblind.. In the LR Bible they are mentioned in the chapter on Conditional Reasoning.

We don't talk about them a lot, for a couple reasons. One is, they aren't really tested a lot, since they are not an error like a Mistaken Negation or a Mistaken Reversal. The other is that they aren't as sexy as Contrapositives and chain relationships. But a repeat form is just taking any conditional relationship (If A, then B) and saying "here's a case where the sufficient condition happened, and therefore the necessary condition happened" (A, therefore B). It must be true, and is therefore valid, but it's also kind of easy and obvious and boring, so not often the source of a correct answer. But those make for great wrong answers when you are trying to parallel one of the other forms!

[lemonade42]

Since (B) only has 1 error which is the mistaken reversal, if it also had the "flaw of not knowing", how would we rewrite it?
I originally thought to write (below) because it shows we know one thing (Patrice works only on Thursday) but we don't know another thing (Today is Thursday), so we can't make a conclusion about knowing that Patrice is working today

(B) We know that Patrice works only on Thursday. Today is Thursday, so we know that Patrice is working today.

But, since the speaker is "we" and "we" say "Today is Thursday", wouldn't that automatically mean we know that today is Thursday? So how would we rewrite (B)?

[Dana D]

Hey lemonade,

There would have to be another factor in here that someone has no way of knowing - the "knowing" flaw in the stimulus is the conclusion that just because Alicia knows the bank deposit was made before 3 PM, she also knows the deposit was credited, when in reality all she knows is that the deposit happened.

If we wanted to reimagine answer choice (B) to be correct, we would have to add some element that might not necessarily be known. For example:

Alicia schedules Patrice to work only when Alicia has to pick up her child from school early. Today Patrice is scheduled to work, so Patrice knows that Alicia has to pick up her child early.

We don't know that Patrice is privvy to this information though - so this is a flaw. We'd have to state these things as separate facts (Patrice is scheduled to work today, so Alicia wants to pick up her child). It is the addition of assuming Patrice knows that is a flaw.