PrepTest 141, Section 4, Question 21
The only songs Amanda has ever written are(37 more words not shown)
The reasoning in which one(13 more words not shown)
- AThe only pets(33 more words not shown)
- BMost parrots are(31 more words not shown)
- CAll the pets(34 more words not shown)
- DEvery pet the(37 more words not shown)
- EThe Gupta family(34 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
Amanda has written only two kinds of songs: blues and punk rock. The argument treats her next song as another choice between those two kinds. If it isn't blues, it will be punk, and most punk songs use three or fewer chords. That is why the author predicts three or fewer chords for the next nonblues song.
I'd hesitate to treat that as a guarantee. Amanda's punk songs could be unusual; perhaps she tends to use four chords even though most punk songs don't. But we're asked for parallel reasoning, so the job is to match the moves the argument actually makes.
What we’re looking for
Keep three pieces in view: a history involving only two categories; a feature most members of the second category have; and a prediction about the next case, conditional on its not belonging to the first category. The feature here is 'three or fewer chords.' Its negative wording doesn't matter as much as its role in the argument.
Working the answers
- A
Fish and parrots match the two genres, and noise matches the chord feature. But A starts its prediction by directly telling us the next pet is a parrot. The original starts by excluding blues and relies on the two-category history to reach punk rock. A skips that step; it would match a prediction that directly began, 'If Amanda's next song is punk rock...'
- B
This moves from the feature back to the category: a noisy pet was probably a parrot. The original goes from a category to a likely feature. It doesn't argue that a song with three or fewer chords was probably punk rock. B also concerns a pet owned in the past rather than the next pet.
- C
This is close: the family has owned only two kinds of pets, most parrots are noisy, and a nonfish pet is predicted to be noisy. But C applies that prediction to any pet the family ever owns. The original predicts a feature of the next song, not every future nonblues song. E preserves that more specific scope.
- D
This excludes the wrong category. Parrots correspond to punk songs, the category for which we know the typical feature. Excluding parrots and predicting not noisy would match excluding punk songs and predicting more than three chords. The original instead excludes blues and predicts the typical punk feature.
- ECorrect
The family corresponds to Amanda; fish correspond to blues songs; parrots correspond to punk songs. Noisy is the typical parrot feature, just as three or fewer chords is the typical punk feature. Excluding fish from the next pet leads to the predicted parrot feature, matching the move from the next song's not being blues to its probably having the punk feature.
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