#24 - If a society encourages freedom of thought and

[James Finch]

Hi Mallie,

No, your diagram of the stimulus isn't wrong. I would have also diagrammed both sufficient conditions in the stimulus as:

Encourage FoT + Encourage FoE Creativity Flourish (CF)

with the conclusion as you have it.

But as a parallel flaw question, we're looking for answer choices that contain the same flaw, which is a Mistaken Reversal. It doesn't matter how many conditions we're dealing with, just that we identify the exact flaw and see that same flaw play out in the answer choices. We just have to find the one that doesn't contain an MR.

(A)--Conditional Premise: Travel Safer Airfares Rise,

Argument: Airfares Rise Travel Safer

Pretty clear MR here.

(B)--Conditional Premise: Increase Efficiency Crime Down,

Argument: Crime Down Increased Efficiency

Same as (A), clear MR.

(C)--Conditional Premise: Interested Preservation Wildlife Big Game Hunting

Argument: Big Game Hunting Interested Preservation Wildlife

Again a clear MR.

(D)--Conditional Premise: Safe Marked Poison

Argument: Marked Poison Safe

Another MR.

(E)--Conditional Premise: Democratic Opinions Meaningful Effect Government

Argument: Opinions Meaningful Effect Government Democratic

First valid logic we've seen, using the contrapositive to conclude the negation of the sufficient condition. Correct answer.

Hope this clears things up!

[lina2020]

Hello,

I correctly diagrammed the stimulus for this question as well as all of the answer choices and recognized that E is an exact match of the Mistaken Reversal flaw. However, I noticed a big difference in this parallel question versus others that I've worked on. The time element in each answer choice was different (as noted below) and did not match the PAST TENSE that was used in the stimulus. I originally thought that is reason enough to eliminate an answer choice in Parallel questions, based on the PowerScore methodology: match the conclusions and match the premises.
Would you mind elaborating on this as much as possible?
Why was it okay for the time to keep shifting?
Also, I have read in previous forum posts that you cannot go from something that WAS to speaking definitively about the future (i.e. WILL). In what cases would that apply?

Stimulus Conclusion: "freedom of thought WAS encouraged.."
A. "...air travel WILL therefore become safer"
B. "...police department HAS improved its efficiency"
C "...she IS really interested in"
D. "...its contents WILL be safe"

[Robert Carroll]

lina,

The stimulus does involve a Mistaken Reversal flaw, but note that the question is "An error of reasoning of the same kind as one contained in the passage is present in each of the following arguments EXCEPT," meaning that every wrong answer will contain a Mistaken Reversal, and the correct answer will not. So answer choice (E) is the correct answer because it's the only one that does NOT include a Mistaken Reversal.

As to when time matters, for conditionals, the time element is typically not part of the argument. Conditionals do not typically have a time relationship to them - when the author is saying that all societies of a certain type have a certain quality, the author is not intending to limit that to any particular time. It applies to all societies, past, present, and future. So the fact that the particular instance in the stimulus is in the past is just not used by the argument. If the stimulus instead said "A thousand years in the future, a society will exist where creativity flourishes. Therefore, that society will encourage free thought and expression," that would not have changed any of the logical features of the stimulus. Because that time element is not a logical feature of the stimulus, it does not have to be paralleled, so that feature is not a relevant way to judge any of the answer choices.

A time element matters when the argument relies on it in some way. If I say "Every time I took I-376 after work, I was late to class. Therefore, if I take I-376 tomorrow after work, I will be late to class," I have an argument that is relying on time elements. The premise claims that something has always happened, and the conclusion claims that something will happen in the future in a way consistent with the past. This is a Time Shift Error, because things might be different tomorrow from how they've been in the past.

Compare that example argument to this one: "Anyone who takes I-376 will be late. Smith is taking I-376, so Smith will be late." There is no time element to this - it's not saying a relationship has existed in the past, but that the relationship between taking that road and being late always has been, always is, and always will be. It's not just that the limited number of people who've taken that road have been late - the premise is claiming that anyone, ever, who takes that road will be late.

The stimulus is like the example from the previous paragraph, where the time element is not present.

It's true that an argument with premises about the past can be flawed if its conclusion is about the future! But this argument is not one with that time element to it.

Robert Carroll

[hipsterbritt]

I have a question on why E was switched from how it was proposed. It says "and in none of these countries does each citizen's opinion have such an effect." You wrote (no) OME (NO) D. that does make it no longer a mistaken R, but what made it ok to switch? I hope I make sense.

[Ryan Twomey]

Hey Hipsterbritt,

When mapping out the answer choices in a parallel reasoning conditional problem, we went to copy the logical order of the stimulus above. I mapped out the stimulus above as such:

In the stimulus above we had

Free---->Creativity flourish

Then

Creativity flourish----->Free

Our conclusion in the stimulus was the necessary term on the second statement we mapped out. (Aka free in my diagram)


The first statement I map out in answer choice E is going to match the first statement I mapped out in the stimulus:

Democratic----->meaningful effects

Then I would say

No meaningful effects------>Not democratic

I mapped out E in the same logical order, but it did not match our stimulus, thus making it an incorrect answer.

I hope this process makes sense and I wish you all of the luck in your studies.

Best,
Ryan

[rlouis1993]

For answer choice "E", is the word "for" acting as the sufficient indicator?

[Adam Tyson]

It is! "For" is another common Sufficient Condition indicator that you can add to your list, along with "if" and "when" and others. It's not always going to be used in that way, though, so be careful about being too inflexible about that. For example:

"I gave my son the newest edition of Final Fantasy for his birthday."

In that case, "for" means something more like "because." There's nothing conditional happening there.

"For" will usually be paired with a necessary indicator like "must" if it is going to be conditional. Like:

"For someone to be admitted into the private party, their name must be on the guest list."

[Brennan365]

So does that mean in ParallelX questions where the stimulus is a Mistaken Reversal, the answer is I should be looking for a Contrapositive?

Thank you,

Brennan

[Dana D]

Hi Brennan,

This question is actually a parallel flaw X question, which is why even though the flaw was Mistaken Reversal we were looking for an answer choice which was not a Mistaken Reversal. 4 of the answer choices would be Mistaken Reversals, one would not be, and in this case that would be the correct answer. The answer choice did not have to be a contrapositive; it merely needed to not have a Mistaken Reversal in it.

Does that make sense?

[hyperfang9000]

Hi there! I got this question correct, but I had to go through each answer and diagram it before arriving at the correct answer. Is there a quicker strategy for eliminating Losers and keeping Contenders in this question, or is it pretty much old school only?