#22 - Anatomical bilateral symmetry is a common trait. It follows, therefore, that it confers

[Administrator]

Complete Question Explanation

Parallel Reasoning—Sufficient and Necessary. The correct answer choice is (C).

Answer choice (A):

Answer choice (B):

Answer choice (C): This is the correct answer choice.

Answer choice (D):

Answer choice (E):

This explanation is still in progress. Please post any questions below!

[relona]

To make sure I am understanding this right. When I saw this, I thought that it was a flawed argument because it used circular reasoning. With that said, I chose (A) because I believed to also use circular reasoning. I can see why (C) is correct, I am wondering why (A) is incorrect?

Thanks!

-relona

[Adam Tyson]

I saw it the same way, relona! Although if we accept the conditional premise, we have to accept the conclusion since it is a contrapositive, so perhaps it's not truly a circular flaw? Either way, to parallel the argument we must select an answer that is based on a contrapositive of a conditional statement, and that is where answer A fails. The evidence is about Sawyer being available and negotiations being deferred, while the conclusion changes terms to talk about taking matters seriously and Sawyer being the negotiator.

Answer C is based on a contrapositive, which makes it parallel to the structure and reasoning of the stimulus. They threw in that bit about detractors just to make it less attractive, but the underlying reasoning is still the same.