PrepTest 148, Section 3, Question 26

What we’re looking for

Working the answers

• A

  The premises start well: novels replace countries, popularity replaces age, and being made into a movie replaces being ruled by a monarch. Most novels aren't adapted, and more popular novels are more likely to be adapted. But the conclusion suddenly starts with an unpopular movie, not an unpopular novel. Then it asks whether that movie was based on a novel, rather than whether a novel will be adapted. Those are different subjects and different relationships. The original keeps talking about the same kind of thing—a country—and whether it has the same property—a monarch.

• B

  The trend here concerns movies: more popular movies are more likely to have been based on novels. The conclusion switches to a popular novel and predicts that it will become a movie. That is not applying the stated trend to the same kind of thing. There's another mismatch too: it takes a particularly high level of popularity and predicts the property is present. The original takes a particularly low age and predicts the property is absent. Both the subject change and the direction of the final prediction break the match.

• C

  The statement about a particularly unpopular novel probably not being adapted plays the role of our original conclusion, but C uses it as a premise. C then concludes the broader popularity trend. In the original, the broader age trend is given and helps support the prediction about a particularly new country. Switching a supporting claim with the claim it is supposed to establish changes the reasoning even though the same kinds of relationships appear.

• D
  Correct

  Most novels aren't made into movies, just as most countries aren't ruled by monarchs. The more popular a novel is, the more likely it is to be adapted, just as an older country is more likely to have a monarch. A quite unpopular novel has little of the trait associated with that property. The conclusion therefore predicts that it probably won't be adapted, matching the prediction that a particularly new country probably won't have a monarch. The premises appear in a different order, but their jobs and the conclusion's direction match.

• E

  This also begins with adaptations being uncommon, but its trend says complexity makes adaptation less likely. A simple plot therefore moves a novel toward the more likely side, and E concludes that it will probably be adapted. That's different from combining an uncommon property with a case on the less likely side and predicting the property's absence. More likely also needn't mean likely overall: a 30 percent chance is higher than a 5 percent chance, but still below half. The problem isn't merely that E says 'less likely' where the original says 'more likely.' It's how that trend and the overall rarity are used to support the particular conclusion.