PrepTest 109, Section 4, Question 25
Essayist: Every contract negotiator has been lied to(28 more words not shown)
If the essayist's statements are(10 more words not shown)
- AEvery contract negotiator(3 more words not shown)
- BNot everyone who(6 more words not shown)
- CNot everyone who(6 more words not shown)
- DWhoever lies to(11 more words not shown)
- EWhoever lies to(6 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
Being lied to isn't the same as lying to someone else.
After the first two statements, we know that contract negotiators have been on the receiving end of lies and that the people who told those lies practiced deception. We shouldn't yet transfer that behavior to the negotiators themselves.
Then the final statement gives us the missing link: anyone who has been lied to has also lied to someone. Now we can follow a particular negotiator through the whole chain. Someone lied to that negotiator, so the negotiator has also lied; because lying is practicing deception, the negotiator has practiced deception too.
What we’re looking for
That's my prediction for the must-be-true question. The facts don't identify who lied to whom in return, and they don't say that every liar has been lied to. Keep the direction of each statement straight rather than filling in a story about reciprocal dishonesty.
Working the answers
- ACorrect
Take any contract negotiator. The first statement says someone has lied to that person. The last statement therefore tells us that the negotiator has also lied to someone. And the middle statement says that anyone who lies practices deception. All three statements work together to establish A for every negotiator.
- B
There might be ways to deceive without telling a lie, but the passage doesn't establish that anyone actually does so. It tells us that lying is deception. That doesn't tell us whether some deception occurs without lying, so B goes beyond the supplied facts.
- C
This directly conflicts with the statement that whoever lies to anyone practices deception. C says some people who lie are not practicing deception. The passage explicitly rules that out.
- D
Suppose Alex lies to a contract negotiator named Blair. We know Blair has also lied to someone, but we don't know that Blair lied to Alex. Blair could have lied to Casey. Nor does the passage establish that Alex has been lied to at all, much less by a contract negotiator.
D adds both an unsupported direction and an unsupported identification of the people involved. The fact that negotiators have been lied to and have themselves lied doesn't establish that they return lies to the people who lied to them.
- E
This starts with someone who tells a lie and concludes that someone has lied to that person. The given rule starts at the other end: if someone has been lied to, that person has also told a lie.
Imagine someone who lies while everyone else always tells that person the truth. Nothing in the passage rules that out. E would rule it out, so E doesn't follow. Being a liar alone doesn't establish the receiving-a-lie condition needed to apply the stated rule.
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