"Follows logically" wording in Q stem & LR Family Types

[rench.co]

One must be true question stem on page 150 of the LR Bible uses the phrasing "Which one of the following logically follow from the statements above?" Why is this a must be true question based on the wording alone? And how does it differ from the sufficient assumption phrasing, "the conclusion above follows logically if which one of the following is assumed?" Can you differentiate the sufficient assumption from the must be true question type because the sufficient assumption contains "follows logically" and then "assumed" whereas the must be true is just the wording "follows logically" in reference to the statements above?

For the family 1 & 4 noticed that the question stems usually contain the word "above" versus family 2 & 3 which typically contain the word "following" which is also indicated in the section of the LR bible surrounding page 91. Does this always occur/may help identify the family or does it sometimes change where the word above/following could appear for any of the family groups. For example on page 111 question 4 the stem states "each of the following ddescibes a flaw in the psychologist's reasoning EXCEPT." At first I wrote down that it was a WeakenX because it contained the word "following" so I thought it could be a family 2 or 3 but then I saw the word "flaw" and I believe at some point the book mentions that the word flaw can indicate weaken....is that true or did I make a mistake? Looking back I understand why it is a FlawX due to the whole "flaw in the reasoning" wording followed by "except." But I believe my mistake for this question occured with the "following" and "above" thinking I was using in relation to family types....Did I make an unwarrneted assumption based on what I read in the book and should I be thinking about the difference between the family types in another way?

Thank you for taking the tine to read and answer my questions!

[Beth Hayden]

Hi Rench,

There is a subtle but important difference there.

For something to follow logically from the stimulus, it means that you can take the premises in the stimulus and use logical reasoning to conclude that the answer choice is true. Put another way, if A and B are true, you can infer (it logically follows) that C is true.

In a sufficient assumption question, the arrow (flow of information) goes the other way. The answer choice + the premises prove the conclusion. The sufficient assumption question stem you mentioned is a conditional statement because it is asking whether the conclusion makes sense IF the answer choice is true. Here you get to accept the answer choice as true, whereas with a must be true question you have to prove the answer choice is true.

Another way to differentiate the wording is that in the must be true question stem you cited it's the answer choice that "logically follows" from the stimulus. In the sufficient assumption question stem, the conclusion is the thing that "follows logically" from the answer choice.

Then on the flaw/weaken issue, the question stems might use similar language and both address a flaw in the argument. The difference is that a flaw question asks you to articulate the flaw itself, so information flows from the stimulus to the answer choices. In a weaken question it goes the other way. They are asking which answer choice, if it's true, would make the conclusion weaker, so information flows from the answer choices to the stimulus. There's going to be something in the question stem that indicates that--it usually says "if true" or "if assumed."

In the question stem you cited, the word "following" is just referring to the answer choices. You could use that for either question type, it's just another way of asking "which answer choice..." That's different than talking about something logically following something else, which is a more abstract use of the word.

So you're right that this language does indicate the flow of information, but both use the word "follow" in the opposite way. There aren't many universal statements we can make about the wording used in question stems because (1) words can be used in different ways, and (2) you never know if the test makers are going to come up with new creative wording on a future test.

Hope that helps!
Beth

[ValentineBosco]

The word "flaw" is actually a strong indicator for FlawX, because a question about reasoning errors often asks you to identify a weakness in reasoning.