#25 - Keeler wanted the institute to receive bad publicity

[Administrator]

Please post your questions below!

[davidh]

Hello,

I need a help in checking my reasoning for why B is incorrect.

Stimulus says X and Y are the only variable and by eliminating Y, we can conclude "it must be X"

Answer choice B states:
C and W were the only ones who had motive to bribe.....
and it goes on to say that W would have been too fearful that the bribery might be made public...
I think B is wrong because having been too fearful.. does not necessarily mean that W lost its motive to bribe.
Therefore, it doesn't necessarily negate Y but talks about different things.

C is correct because it introduces two variables (H and L are the only ones with access) and eliminates L by saying (L did not have access)

[Dave Killoran]

Hey David,

Yes, that's in the right vein. To be specific, in the stimulus you see that Greene had no reason to do anything, and then again in (C) you see that Lapinski had no reason to do anything. Compare that to (B), where Whitequill had motive (as given in the first sentence) but then did nothing out of fear (as opposed to having no reason). That slight shift is enough to knock out (B) here.

It's tricky, but one would expect that from a Parallel question at the very end of the section!

[sbose]

Hi there!

I picked answer choice B both during the test and on blind review and am having a hard time seeing why C is correct. I chose B over C because B only spoke about one person (Whitequill), similar to how the stimulus spoke only about Greene. I thought C was incorrect because it spoke about both people (Helms and Lapinski).

I'm wondering if there's a reason other than the fact that answer choice C said that Helms had a reason to tamper and Lapinski did not? For parallel flaw questions, I try not to rely on the exact words in the stimulus and answer choices (other than for the force of the argument, i.e. most, should, likely, etc.) but it seems like you had to do that with this question.

Thank you so much in advance for your help!

[katehos]

Hi sbose!

Both the stimulus and each of the answer choices you mentioned discuss two different people (Keeler & Greene, Carter & Whitequill, and Helms & Lapinski), so this is not a reason to eliminate answer choice (C).

When comparing (B) and (C), one of the biggest reasons to eliminate (B) is because this answer choice discusses both people having a reason (motive) to do something then opting NOT to do that out of fear, while the stimulus discusses one person having a reason (motive) to do something and another person having NO reason to do something.

If we were to break down the stimulus more abstractly, we'd get something like this:

A (Keeler) has motive to do something.
A and B (Greene) were the only ones with the opportunity to do that thing.
B does not have motive to do something.
Therefore, A did it.

This is exactly what we get in answer choice (C):

A (Helms) and B (Lapinski) are the only ones with opportunity to do something.
A had reason to do that thing.
B did not have reason to do that thing.
Therefore, A did it.

To contrast this, let's look at (B):

A (Carter) and B (Whitequill) are the only ones with motive to do something.
B is too afraid to do that thing.
Therefore, A did it.

As you can see, (C) matches the stimulus much more closely than (B) does! Since this is a Parallel Flaw question, we need to parallel every aspect of the stimulus, including the Flaw itself. This means that the language should be the same (or logically equivalent), the premises should be the same, the reasoning should be the same, the conclusion should be the same, and the abstraction should be the same. The topic, however, does not need to be the same.

I hope this helps!
Kate

[sbose]

Hi Kate,

Yes, that's super helpful! I'll remember to look at the reasoning more abstractly next time.

Thanks again!