#21 - Monroe, despite his generally poor appetite

[James Finch]

Hi Lola,

It looks like you misread the question stem: this is actually a Most Strongly Supported inferential question, as opposed to a Strengthen question. We're tasked with looking for what is most likely true, assuming everything in the stimulus, including the conclusion, is true as well. Based on this, we can Prephrase we only know about past experiences, and that Monroe could have eaten any of those meals he ate without getting sick provided he didn't have the hot peppers. Conversely, he could have eaten any other meal with hot peppers and gotten sick as well. However, we don't know anything about the present or future (maybe Tip Top got a new pepper supplier) so we can't speculate about will happen.

(B) is the only supported answer choice on this basis, as it goes back to the idea that anything with hot peppers would have gotten Monroe sick. (D) doesn't work because we have no idea what Monroe has or hasn't eaten outside of the three meals described in the stimulus.

Hope this clears things up!

[yournoona]

Hi Lola,

It looks like you misread the question stem: this is actually a Most Strongly Supported inferential question, as opposed to a Strengthen question. We're tasked with looking for what is most likely true, assuming everything in the stimulus, including the conclusion, is true as well.
Hope this clears things up!

Hello
I committed the same mistake. How do you differentiate whether support is used as a strengthen type or a must be true? It will be really helpful if you can give me a few pointers on this regard
Thanks!

[Adam Tyson]

Happy to do so, yournoona! A Strengthen question stem will indicate that the answer choices are to be accepted as true ("which of the following, if true" or "which of the following, if accepted" or "which of the following, if assumed", etc.) and that they will support the information in the argument. Look for words that indicate the flow of information is back up to the stimulus, and not down to the answers. Phrases like "provides the most support for the conclusion above" or "most strengthens the reasoning presented in the argument." The support is going up.

A Most Strongly Supported question stem will not indicate that the answers are true, but may indicate that the facts in the stimulus are true, such as "the information above, if correct" or "which of the following is most strongly supported by the facts as given in the statement" or "the claims above provide the most support for inferring which of the following." In each of these, the information provided is what we are supposed to accept, and the support flows downward to the answer choices. We are looking to make an inference, rather than support a conclusion.

Finally, most of the time in a Strengthen scenario there will be an argument in the stimulus, and the stem frequently uses that word - support's the argument, strengthens the argument, etc. In a Most Strongly Supported, like a Must Be True, there is rarely an argument in the stimulus, just a fact set, a series of statements or claims. That can also help you recognize the difference between a Strengthen and a Most Strongly Supported. You don't strengthen facts, you strengthen arguments and reasoning. You use facts to prove or support new inferences.

Give those ideas a try and see if they help you to keep those two straight!

[jimmy1115]

Dear Powerscore admin,

I would like to ask about the use of formal logic to address this q, the last line in the premise 'Monroe concludes that it is solely due to hot peppers that he became ill' for this line if I were to transfer it into a conditional statement, is it ill --> hot pepper? As the word 'solely' indicates that hot pepper is the 'only' thing that is contributing to his illness. Not sure if I'm understanding this correctly

If this is the case, how does having hot pepper guarantee that he will become ill? As presented in (B) scenario.

I ended up picking (C), i understand the logic behind how 'next time' makes (C) problematic, but could it be the correct answer had the (C) changed it to something like 'if Monroe did not order hot pepper but only pizza for his first meal this time, he would not have become ill'?

Really want to clarify if I am understanding the formal logic correctly,

thank you

[Adam Tyson]

I wouldn't take a conditional approach to this one, jimmy1115, because the phrase "due to" is causal, not conditional, and the rules for causal reasoning are different. If the hot peppers are the sole cause of the illness, then the relationship flows in both directions: if he eats the peppers, he will get sick, and if he gets sick, he ate the peppers. Where the cause is present, so is the effect, and where the effect is present, so is the cause.

Your analysis would be correct if the stimulus has concluded instead that Monroe gets ill "only when he eats hot peppers." That would be a purely conditional conclusion, and answer B would be a Mistaken Reversal of that conclusion. But since the conclusion was causal, we have to approach it a little differently.

[jimmy1115]

I wouldn't take a conditional approach to this one, jimmy1115, because the phrase "due to" is causal, not conditional, and the rules for causal reasoning are different. If the hot peppers are the sole cause of the illness, then the relationship flows in both directions: if he eats the peppers, he will get sick, and if he gets sick, he ate the peppers. Where the cause is present, so is the effect, and where the effect is present, so is the cause.

Your analysis would be correct if the stimulus has concluded instead that Monroe gets ill "only when he eats hot peppers." That would be a purely conditional conclusion, and answer B would be a Mistaken Reversal of that conclusion. But since the conclusion was causal, we have to approach it a little differently.

Hi Adam,
Thank you so much for your reply.
Just to clarify for these 'causal' rules, when the causal relationship is assumed to be true (as is presented in this q), then basically cause and effect is to be taken similarly to biconditional logic right? Cause always produces effect, and effect is always caused by this particular cause. Similarly, if one of them is missing, so will the other.
If Monroe didn't eat hot pepper that day, he would not get ill.
If he is ill, then he has hot pepper.

Are these understandings correct?

thank you,
Jimmy

[Adam Tyson]

Generally, yes, causal relationships are presumed to go both ways like that, and that's what makes many of them flawed (because you might have one thing without the other.) But there are some "soft" causal arguments out there, where they say things like "is a contributing factor" and "one of the causes" and "sometimes caused by." When they soften it that way, then cause without effect doesn't really hurt, nor does effect without cause. In those cases, to weaken the argument you would typically want to show that the causal relationship is based on bad data, or perhaps that the purported cause and effect are reversed.