PrepTest 152, Section 2, Question 19
Some species of tarantula make good pets.(18 more words not shown)
Which one of the following(13 more words not shown)
- ANone of the(35 more words not shown)
- BSome of the(37 more words not shown)
- CSome of the(30 more words not shown)
- DSome of the(29 more words not shown)
- ENo poems with(33 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
A tarantula might not be your idea of a good pet, but we're told that some species do make good pets. Accept that. Those particular species can't have poison fangs, because nothing with poison fangs makes a good pet.
So at least some tarantula species lack poison fangs. That's all 'not all have poison fangs' means here. It doesn't mean that every tarantula lacks them.
What we’re looking for
This reasoning works. For the parallel, we need some members of a group that have a quality, plus a rule saying another property rules that quality out. The members with the quality must lack that other property. The answers can give those premises in a different order, so follow the relationships rather than matching sentence positions.
Working the answers
- ACorrect
Keep the three roles straight: the collection is our group of tarantulas, having regular meter is making a good pet, and being written by Strawn is having poison fangs. No Strawn poem has regular meter, just as no creature with poison fangs makes a good pet. Yet some poems in the collection do have regular meter, just as some tarantulas do make good pets. Those metered poems therefore cannot be Strawn's. The same particular members establish the same 'at least some are not' conclusion. Only the order of the premises changes.
- B
We have some metered poems in the collection and some unmetered poems by Strawn. That doesn't put the Strawn poems outside the collection: the collection could contain both metered and unmetered poems, including all of Strawn's. Unlike the original's rule excluding every poison-fanged creature from the good-pet group, this answer gives only two 'some' claims. There is no universal exclusion to separate the groups.
- C
Some Strawn poems have regular meter, and none of his poems are in the collection. That places those particular metered poems outside the collection. It doesn't show that any poem inside the collection lacks regular meter. The collection could consist entirely of metered poems by other writers. The original connects its identified members to a rule that forces the conclusion; this does not.
- D
Some collection poems are Strawn's, and every collection poem lacks regular meter. We could conclude that some Strawn poems lack regular meter. Instead, this answer says that only his unpublished poetry has regular meter. Nothing in the premises mentions publication, so we have no basis for classifying his metered poems as unpublished. The conclusion adds a fourth property that our original argument never needed.
- E
The collection contains neither metered poems nor Strawn poems. Those two exclusions tell us nothing about how Strawn's poems relate to regular meter: all of his poems could have it, or none could. Unlike the original, this answer never identifies some members of one relevant group that also belong to another. We lack the overlap that lets the tarantula argument reach its conclusion.
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