#19 - Team captain: Winning requires the willingness to

[Rachael Wilkenfeld]

Hi Toadking,

There was distinguishing features between this question and the one you reference. The key is that the other question was a flawed pattern of reasoning, not matching a valid argument with a valid argument. A statement and it's contrapositive are equivalent, but a mistaken reversal and a mistaken negations are two different ways of making the same type of error. That is why you see a difference in that question.

Hope that helps!

[Mmjd12]

Hi!

I narrowed it between choices (B) and (C) Here's the way I mapped these:

Stimulus:

Wining Willingness to Cooperate Motivation

Motivation Winning

Which is logically sound

Choice (B):
Learning Mistakes Improve
(Using the "Unless Equation for "without there being a noticeable improvement")
Mistakes Improvement

This is also logically sound but does not contain the contrapositive like the stimulus does, so it is not the answer.

Choice (C):

Raise Money Retain Status
Raise Money Increased Campaigning
(Using the "Unless Equation for "unless it increases campaigning")
Retain Status Increase Campaigning

This does not mirror the contrapositive in the stimulus. It feels close but not quite enough to be right. Is it correct because the contrapositive is implied? But if that's the case then isn't the contrapositive implied in choice (B) as well?

(A) is clearly wrong (D) is a mistaken reversal and (E) looks to me like a mistaken negation. I struggled to choose between B and C

[Adam Tyson]

You've incorrectly diagrammed both of those answers, Mmjd12. Here's the right way to diagram answer B:

Learning Mistakes
Improve Learning (this is because the Sufficient Condition indicator "if" introduces "you are to improve.".)
Thus, this creates a chain of
Improvement Learning Mistakes

The conclusion in B is just the way you diagrammed it, and it's a Mistaken Reversal of the chain. That's why it didn't match the valid contrapositive in the stimulus.

In answer C, the phrase "only if" introduces a Necessary Condition, so the diagram should be the reversal of what you drew:

Retain Status Raise Money

The rest of your diagram is correct, and done this way it's not the contrapositive, but keep in mind that the contrapositive of a conditional relationship is logically equivalent to that conditional statement. That means that

Retain Status Increase Campaigning

and

Increase Campaigning Retain Status

mean the same thing! Replacing one with the other doesn't change the meaning, it's just a different way of expressing it. That's why C is a match for the stimulus; they are both valid conditional statements that properly connect the first thing in a chain of three things to the last thing in that chain.

Pay careful attention to conditional indicator words and phrases so that you don't mix them up!