PrepTest 121, Section 4, Question 22
If there is an election, you can either(57 more words not shown)
The reasoning in which one(11 more words not shown)
- AWhen you rent(49 more words not shown)
- BIf you go(58 more words not shown)
- CIf you attend(43 more words not shown)
- DIf you use(46 more words not shown)
- EWhen manufacturers use(39 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
I might disagree that someone who skips an election loses the right to complain. What if they dislike both candidates? Refusing both options doesn't necessarily mean being happy with whichever one wins.
But that claim is a premise we're asked to accept here. The question concerns how the argument works once its rules are in place. It gives us two possibilities: you vote or you don't. Voting leads to satisfaction about influencing the result; not voting leads to having no right to complain. With those premises, one of the two outcomes follows.
What we’re looking for
For the parallel question, keep that structure intact: two possibilities that cover every case, one stated result for each possibility, and a conclusion giving us either result. We don't have to predict which branch a person takes. Both branches have an outcome, so the conclusion can cover them together.
Working the answers
- A
The opening looks close: take insurance or don't, with a consequence for each. But the conclusion says you are better off insured if an accident occurs. That introduces a comparison between the options under an additional circumstance. Our argument merely concludes that one of its two stated outcomes will occur. A matching conclusion would say that the renter is either covered or personally liable, rather than recommending the better position in an accident.
- B
This never supplies a definite result for each of its opening possibilities, feeling relaxed or not feeling relaxed. It gives a likely consequence of relaxation and then a likely consequence of sore muscles. Those are different starting conditions, and the likelihood language also weakens the connections. The final choice between soreness and better conditioning is not the pair of outcomes established for the two original branches.
- C
The opening divides the cases into stimulating courses and courses that aren't stimulating. But the next rules begin with teachers being motivated or unmotivated. To match the original, we'd want a result that follows from finding the courses stimulating and another result that follows from not finding them stimulating.
C also ends with either motivated teachers or unstimulating courses, mixing a condition from its rules with an outcome. That isn't our conclusion's pair of outcomes. We are matching the route through the argument, not merely finding another statement with “either” and “or.”
- DCorrect
Easily readable and not easily readable correspond to voting and not voting: two possibilities covering every case. Readable messages are password protected, just as voting produces satisfaction. Messages that aren't easily readable are encrypted, just as not voting removes the right to complain.
The conclusion carries forward those two results: a message is password protected or encrypted. Every branch has its stated outcome, and the conclusion gives us one outcome or the other. That is the original argument's structure.
- E
The premises set up the right kind of division: efficient or inefficient, followed by lasting longer or being depleted quickly. But the conclusion suddenly introduces fines. Nothing in the premises says anyone should be fined. To match, E would conclude that the resource will either last much longer or be depleted quickly. It instead combines one starting condition with a new recommendation.
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