#20 - Anyone who insists that music videos are an art form

[Administrator]

Complete Question Explanation

Parallel Reasoning-SN. The correct answer choice is (B)

The stimulus argues that since television gave rise to music videos, if music videos are an art form, television gave rise to music videos. You could write the conditionals:

• Premises:
  
  "Music Video → Art Form"
  
  "Television Causes Music Video"
  
  Conclusion:
  
  "Television Causes Art Form."

The reasoning is formally valid, and consists of two premises and an additive inference.

Answer choice (A): This choice contains invalid reasoning, and is incorrect. Furthermore, this response contains only one premise, so it is impossible to obtain an additive inference.

Answer choice (B): This is the correct answer choice. It argues that since pound cake is lower in fat than avocados, if avocados are fruit, pound cake is lower in fat than at least one fruit. Even though the response contains no causal element, it does involve two premises and a correct additive inference.

Answer choice (C): The argumentation in this choice is flawed, so this response is incorrect. If no taste is universal, anyone who dislikes tomatoes would be forced to admit that some people do not dislike, which means those people could simply be neutral toward tomatoes, so the conclusion that some people must like tomatoes is formally unjustified.

Answer choice (D): This answer choice involves the linking assumption that well-balanced meals provide good nourishment. There is no linking assumption in the stimulus, so this choice is incorrect. Furthermore, the concepts of "most" and "probably" do not match well to the stimulus.

Answer choice (E): This answer choice involves the apparent assumption that the reason people prefer fruit to vegetables is sweetness. This assumption provides a rule that allows the conclusion to be drawn. Since the stimulus contained no similar assumption, this choice is incorrect. Furthermore, this response involves four elements and comparisons, whereas the stimulus involved three elements and the assignment of qualities, not comparisons.

[EL16]

Hello,

I have a question regarding #26 in the parallel reasoning questions in the Lesson 8 homework.

I got this correct, but I really did it through process of elimination (and originally eliminated the correct answer, B). I had assumed that since B did not have the same causal reasoning as in the stimulus, it should be ruled out. After I worked through the rest of the answer choices and realized they were all worse options, I came back to B and found it was the best option--but not a great match and wasn't too confident.

How can I know when to ignore the causal reasoning parallel versus when not to? Would the absence of causal reasoning in answer choice B have made this answer incorrect if there had been another answer choice that had the same parallel reasoning WITH causal reasoning?

Thanks!

[AthenaDalton]

Hi EL16,

There isn't a hard-and-fast rule about when to ignore causal reasoning in a parallel reasoning question or not. Your process of elimination approach was a good one. If an answer choice had appeared as you described using reasoning that is more similar to the stimulus than answer choice (B), that would have been a good choice.

Good luck studying!