#22 - Principle: A police officer is eligible for a Mayor’s

[Administrator]

Complete Question Explanation

Justify the Conclusion—PR, SN. The correct answer choice is (A)

The principle provided in this stimulus is actually a short series of conditional statements. First, if an officer has an exemplary record, that officer is eligible for a Mayor’s Commendation:

• Exemplary record Eligible for Commendation

And, if an officer does not have an exemplary record, that officer is not eligible for the Commendation:

• Exemplary record Eligible for Commendation

Finally, the principle provides, if, this year, an officer has exceeded reasonable expectations of a police officer and saved someone’s life, then that police officer should receive the commendation:

• exceeded reasonable expectations
  + should receive Commendation
  saved someone’s life

Based on the conditional statements from the stimulus’ principle, the author concludes that Officer Franklin should receive the commendation and Officer Penn should not. The question that follows asks for the fact set that would justify the author’s conclusion, so the correct answer choice will show Officer Franklin to be both eligible and deserving of the commendation according to the principle, and Officer Penn either ineligible or undeserving of the Commendation.

Answer choice (A): This is the correct answer choice—it justifies the author’s conclusion that of the two officers, only Franklin should be given the Commendation. Beginning with the information on Franklin: Franklin has an exemplary record and is thus eligible for the Commendation:

• Exemplary record Eligible for Commendation

Further, this year Franklin went beyond what is reasonably expected of an officer and saved someone’s life, which means that Franklin should receive the Mayor’s Commendation:

• exceeded reasonable expectations
  + should receive Commendation
  saved someone’s life

Thus the first half of the author’s conclusion is justified: Officer Franklin should receive the Mayor’s Commendation.
Officer Penn, on the other hand, does not have an exemplary record:

• Exemplary record Eligible for Commendation.

According to the conditional rule above, the lack of exemplary record renders Penn ineligible for the Commendation, so this answer choice justifies both components of the author’s conclusion: Officer
Franklin should receive the commendation, and Officer Penn should not.

Answer choice (B): This is a clever wrong answer choice; where Franklin is concerned, he has an exemplary record, exceeded reasonable expectations, and saved someone’s life: As stated in the stimulus’ conclusion, Franklin should receive a Mayor’s Commendation.

But what about Penn? Penn has an exemplary record, so he is eligible, and he did save someone’s life. He didn’t exceed reasonable expectations, so we cannot be sure he deserves a Mayor’s Commendation. But we also can’t be sure that he shouldn’t receive the Commendation.

Since this choice doesn’t dictate that Penn go without a Commendation, it does not allow the conclusion to be properly drawn.

Answer choice (C): This choice can be ruled out based on its very first sentence: if Franklin doesn’t have an exemplary record, then he is not eligible to receive the Commendation, so there is no way that this answer choice allows the conclusion in the stimulus to be properly drawn.

Answer choice (D): Since this choice doesn’t mention whether or not Franklin has an exemplary record, we can’t even be sure that he’s eligible for the Commendation, meaning this can’t justify the first part of the author’s conclusion. Further, there is no way to tell whether or not Penn should receive the Mayor’s Commendation, so this choice fails to justify the second part half of the stimulus’ conclusion as well.

Answer choice (E): Based on the first sentence of this answer choice, both officers have exemplary records and are thus eligible for the Mayor’s Commendation. Additionally, Franklin has met the other criteria, saving lives and exceeding reasonable expectations of an officer, so this establishes that Franklin should receive the Commendation.

Penn, on the other hand, has not saved any lives or gone above and beyond what is reasonably expected of an officer, so we cannot be sure that he deserves a Commendation. But we also cannot be sure that he doesn’t deserve one (that would be a mistaken negation of the rule diagrammed above). Since this choice doesn’t justify the part of the conclusion that says Penn is specifically undeserving, it cannot be said to justify the whole conclusion and should thus be ruled out of contention.

[kas]

I didn't get this question right and while I understand why the correct answer is correct, I don't understand why one of the incorrect answers is incorrect. A is correct, and I get why C and E are incorrect, and I assume D is incorrect because it does not reference their record. It is B I wasn't able to eliminate. Would anyone be able to explain it to me?
I assumed that receiving the award (or in Franklin's case being suggested to receive it) is sufficient to determine that he a) has an exemplary record (allowing him to be eligible) and b) that he did something this year that exceeded what could be reasonably expected of an officer and resulted in him saving someone's life.
However, Penn, who it is said should not receive the award could not fulfill any one, two, or all of these criteria required, variations of which are the other incorrect answers. Am I thinking this through/diagramming this wrong, or did I repeatedly misread something?


EDIT:
I'm not sure if I've figured this out...
Is not being eligible the only sufficient condition for not getting the award, and the exceeding what is required / saving a life just one possible reason for awarding the commendation?
Meaning the only sufficient factor to ensure Penn does NOT get the award is his being ineligible, while Franklin should get it based on the fact that he is eligible and fulfilled one criteria (exceeded duty/saving a life) that is sufficient to ensure he gets the commendation?

[Steve Stein]

Hi Kas,

That's a good question; B is a clever wrong answer choice, and it sounds like you've basically got it: where Franklin is concerned, he has an exemplary record, exceeded reasonable expectations, and saved someone’s life: As stated in the stimulus’ conclusion, Franklin should receive a Mayor’s Commendation.

But what about Penn? Penn has an exemplary record, so he is eligible, and he did save someone’s life. He didn’t exceed reasonable expectations, so we cannot be sure he deserves a Mayor’s Commendation. But we also can’t be sure that he shouldn’t receive the Commendation.

Since this choice does not dictate that Penn go without a Commendation, it does not allow the conclusion to be properly drawn.

I hope that's helpful! Let me know--thanks!

~Steve

[kas]

Yes, that makes perfect sense.
Thanks so much for your help.
It took me a while to get there but at least I wasn't completely off track

Thanks again

[netherlands]

Hi there PS,

For some reason when I first did this question I got it right but going back and looking at it I'm not super sure.

This question states that:
If they have Exemp Record they're eligible for Mayor Commendation
If they are eligible for MC and went Beyond Expecs to Save Life Should Receive Award

A and B seem to both look right to me. Are the Mayor's Commendation and the "award" the same thing here? At first I didn't think they were and that's why I went through all the questions assuming the difference was based on having an Exemp Record to get the commendation and that the sufficient factors for receiving an "the award" were irrelevant.

[David Boyle]

Hi there PS,

For some reason when I first did this question I got it right but going back and looking at it I'm not super sure.

This question states that:
If they have Exemp Record they're eligible for Mayor Commendation
If they are eligible for MC and went Beyond Expecs to Save Life Should Receive Award

A and B seem to both look right to me. Are the Mayor's Commendation and the "award" the same thing here? At first I didn't think they were and that's why I went through all the questions assuming the difference was based on having an Exemp Record to get the commendation and that the sufficient factors for receiving an "the award" were irrelevant.

Hello,

Yes, they seem to be the same thing. --In A, the necessary exemplary record is missing for Penn, so, no award.
In B, it's pretty sneaky: there may be a mistaken negation thing going on here, in that "if exceed what expected, get award", so "exceed what expected" is a sufficient condition; but *other* things besides "exceeding what expected" (e.g., you're the Mayor's favorite police officer) may let you get the award.

David

[Garrett K]

Hello,

I have a question....

How is A correct? When I diagramed the stimulus I got Exemp record-->eligible. Is this correct? Because If this is, then whether or not both Franklin and Penn had exemplarily records should be irrelevant right? Therefore in answer choice A could've given the award to both Penn and Franklin...Im just really confused.

Sorry for asking so many questions on the forum today....

Thanks,
Garrett

[Emily Haney-Caron]

Hi Garrett,

The officer is eligible if and only if he or she has an exemplary record; that's what it means by "but not otherwise." Therefore, Penn is not eligible due to his lack of an exemplary record.

Hope that helps!

[Maggie White]

Hi PS,

I'm having trouble understanding why "E" is incorrect here-is it because this answer choice breaks up when Franklin exceeds what could reasonably be expected of a police officer and when he saves people's lives?

Thanks in advance!

[Adam Tyson]

Thanks for asking, Maggie. There are actually a couple of problems with answer E that should disqualify it.

First, regarding Franklin, we know from the answer that he has saved lives, and we know that he has gone beyond expectations, but do we know that in any one incident he did both together? That is, did he save a life WHILE exceeding expectations? Or, perhaps, he saved lives while doing ordinary things that he was expected to do, and he exceeded expectations while saving no lives? If we cannot know that he did both things at the same time, then we cannot prove that he should get the award.

Second, regarding Penn, we know that saving lives while exceeding expectations means you SHOULD get the award, but does failing to do those things mean that you should NOT get the award? The conditional relationship here is:

E(xceed) E(xpectations) + S(ave) L(ives) -> G(et) A(ward)

The contrapositive is: GA -> EE or SL

Answer E, with regard to Penn, is based on EE + SL -> GA , and that is a Mistaken Negation. We can't prove that to be true.

For both of those reasons - the lack of information about whether Franklin met both conditions in one incident, and the mistaken negation regarding Penn, we cannot use answer E to justify the conclusion here (the application of the principle to these two police officers).

I hope that clears things up for you!