PrepTest 131, Section 2, Question 9
No member of the Richardson Theater Group is(29 more words not shown)
Which one of the following(15 more words not shown)
- ANot all of(39 more words not shown)
- BNo employee of(34 more words not shown)
- CNo company can(31 more words not shown)
- DNo corporate attorney(32 more words not shown)
- ENo member of(41 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
They can't be both. Does that mean they have to be one or the other?
No member of the theater group is both a performer and an administrator. I'll accept that separation. But Leon and Marta could belong to the group without doing either job. Perhaps they handle lighting or work as janitors. The rule forbids holding the two named roles together; it doesn't say those are the only roles available.
Try the same mistake with sports. Suppose no NBA player also plays in MLB. If Bob is a professional athlete who doesn't play in MLB, must he play in the NBA? He could play in the NFL. Excluding overlap between two groups doesn't eliminate a third group.
What we’re looking for
For a parallel flaw, I want that same move: two categories cannot overlap; someone isn't in one category; therefore they must be in the other. A choice that correctly excludes someone from a category will not match the unsupported assignment to the remaining category.
Working the answers
- A
This says some employees are not salaried. López and Allen are salaried employees, so they cannot be the company's only employees: the nonsalaried employees must be other people. That reasoning works. It also starts with 'not all,' rather than a rule forbidding overlap between two roles, and doesn't force someone into a supposedly exhaustive second category.
- B
The accountant and corporate-attorney roles match the two roles initially, but watch what happens next. Walsh has both qualifications. Since no Tedenco employee has both, she cannot be a Tedenco employee. That follows from the restriction. To match the original, we'd need a Tedenco employee who isn't an accountant and an unsupported conclusion that she must be a corporate attorney.
- CCorrect
Canada and Mexico take the places of performer and administrator. A company cannot have headquarters in both countries. The two companies aren't headquartered in Mexico, just as Leon and Marta aren't administrators. The conclusion then assigns them to Canada, as the original assigns Leon and Marta to performing. What about the United States, a country in Europe, or China? The restriction on being in both named countries doesn't exclude other locations. That is the same mistake.
- D
Here Tseung represents one of the companies. Since no attorney represents both, she doesn't represent the other. That is a valid use of the no-overlap rule. The original would instead say that she doesn't represent Dumone, so she must represent Tedenco. Moving from having one role to lacking the other is different from moving from lacking one to having the other.
- E
The boards have no overlapping members, and each has at least five. Adding the two groups therefore gives at least ten distinct people. The no-overlap rule just prevents double-counting. It isn't used to force someone who lacks one membership into the other board, so this is a different, sound argument.
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