PrepTest 134, Section 2, Question 3
Whenever Joe's car is vacuumed, the employees of(58 more words not shown)
The pattern of reasoning exhibited(16 more words not shown)
- AEmily's water glass(38 more words not shown)
- BLisa went to(31 more words not shown)
- CThere are no(32 more words not shown)
- DLinda is grumpy(41 more words not shown)
- EJeff had to(26 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
Who could have vacuumed Joe's car? Only the K & L employees. And if those employees vacuumed it, Joe must have taken the car there to be fixed. We are told the car was vacuumed, so we can follow those two links all the way through.
Car vacuumed → K & L employees vacuumed it → Joe took it there to be fixed.
Nothing is missing. The first rule rules out Joe vacuuming it himself or another shop doing it. The second connects K & L's vacuuming with a repair visit. Starting with the fact that the car was vacuumed gets us to the conclusion that Joe made that visit. Notice that we only know he took it to be fixed; we haven't been told the repair was completed.
What we’re looking for
We need another argument that uses two connected rules and an actual starting fact to establish the end of the chain. The pieces can appear in a different order. Match what each piece does, rather than insisting that each sentence sit in the same place.
Working the answers
- ACorrect
The wet glass corresponds to the vacuumed car: it's the observed starting fact. A wet glass requires Emily to have drunk water from it that morning, just as a vacuumed car requires the K & L employees to have vacuumed it. Drinking the water requires taking her medication, just as the employees' vacuuming requires Joe to have brought the car in for repair.
So wet glass → drank water → took medication. The first fact is given, and the conclusion reaches the last link. A presents the starting fact before the rules, while the original gives the rules first. That rearrangement doesn't change the reasoning.
- B
Lisa either went to the salon or went to the bank. Eliminating the bank leaves the salon. That is a choice between alternatives followed by ruling one out. Our argument instead moves through two connected requirements; it never offers two competing destinations and eliminates one.
- C
The missing bills create a puzzle: John gets bills daily and puts them on the table, yet none are there. The answer proposes that someone else checked the mail. It doesn't give us two rules linking an observed starting event to that particular explanation. No stated rule says that missing bills require someone else to have checked the mail.
- D
The rules give us grumpy → no morning coffee → ran out of coffee. But the conclusion goes from running out to being grumpy, which those rules don't establish. Linda might run out without becoming grumpy. D also lacks an actual instance of grumpiness from which to follow the chain; it concludes with a general rule instead.
- E
This offers grapefruit or cereal and uses Jeff's allergy as a reason to eliminate grapefruit. Like B, it works by choosing between alternatives. There is no chain in which one observed event requires a second event, which in turn requires a third. The breakfast topic isn't the problem; the pattern is.
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