#8 - If a garden does not receive plenty of water and

[Dave Killoran]

Complete Question Explanation

Flaw, SN. The correct answer choice is (D).

The stimulus sets up a conditional relationship in the first sentence:

• Plenty of water/sun
  + Productive
  Planted in rich soil

Note that the contrapositive of this statement—which we do NOT recommend writing out separately during the problem due to time reasons (and the fact that you should automatically know what the contrapositive of any statement)—is:

• Plenty of water/sun
  Productive or
  Planted in rich soil

The stimulus then continues on to disclose that Patricia has located her garden in area that meets both necessary conditions, namely that it has "Plenty of water/sun" and is "Planted in rich soil." From there, the stimulus then concludes that the sufficient condition must have occurred, namely that her garden will be "Productive."

Thus, the error that has occurred here is the Mistaken Reversal of the second diagram, or, alternately, the Mistaken Negation of the first diagram. Note that both these errors are contrapositives of each other, and thus different ways of expressing the same basic flaw, one where the author mixed up the conditions. Consequently, you should seek an answer that address the conditional nature of the error here.

Answer choice (A): The use of "ideal" in this problem can reasonably be understood to mean that plenty of water and sunlight will be available (since that was the prior context). Thus, this is not an issue in the stimulus.

Answer choice (B): The error is not causal in nature, and thus this answer is incorrect.

Answer choice (C): The error is not causal in nature, and thus this answer is incorrect.

Answer choice (D): This is the correct answer choice. This answer properly identifies the error in play, where the author confused what was necessary for what was sufficient (and vice versa).

Answer choice (E): This answer is incorrect because the first sentence is absolute in explaining the relationship between productive gardens, water/sun, and soil. At that point, all examples either conform to that relationship or not, and thus sampling isn't applicable here.

[miriamson07]

Hello, I'd like to confirm why answer choice B is incorrect. Is it incorrect to say that there is a correlation involved because the correlation that would hypothetically be relevant would be "if a garden receives plenty of water and sunlight and is planted in rich soil, then it will be productive," however, the stimulus says "If a garden does not receive plenty of water and sunlight and is not planted in rich soil, then it will not be productive," which is different?

Thank you!

[Adam Tyson]

There's a simpler answer here, miriamson07: answer B is incorrect because the argument is conditional rather than causal. At no point in the stimulus does the author treat anything as a cause or an effect.

You could say there is a correlation in the stimulus, in that a lack of sunlight and water and rich soil goes together with a non-productive garden. While that might appear to imply a causal relationship - the poor conditions cause the garden to fail, better conditions cause it to succeed - the author never explicitly states that it is a causal relationship. All they did was take that conditional claim and conclude that the absence of the sufficient condition guarantees the absence of the necessary condition. We call that a Mistake Negation, and the correct answer should describe the flaw in conditional terms, not causal terms.