#24 - The local radio station will not win the regional

[Administrator]

Complete Question Explanation

Parallel Reasoning. The correct answer choice is (D)

The author is certain that the local radio station will not win the ratings race this year, because it
never has in the past, and the manager has done nothing to improve their chances of success.

Often an effective strategy in dealing with parallel reasoning questions is to put the argumentation in
the abstract: In this case, something has not happened in the recent past, so we will not see a change
next time around. Answer choices (B) and (D) are the only ones that presume future outcomes based
on past results. Furthermore, note that answer choice (B) deals with pure probability, not certainty.
This leaves answer choice (D), which is correct.

Answer choice (A): This answer choice does not presume future outcomes based on past results.

Answer choice (B): Although this answer choice does presume future outcomes based on past
results, it fails to Match the Conclusion: the statement “the next flip will probably be heads too” does
not match the certainty of the conclusion in the stimulus (“the local radio station will not win the
regional ratings”).

Answer choice (C): This answer choice does not presume future outcomes based on past results.

Answer choice (D): This is the correct answer choice. Since stock prices have been lower on
Mondays in the recent past, there will be no change next time around (this coming Monday). This
answer choice matches the conclusion of the argument and also satisfies the Test of Abstraction.

Answer choice (E): This answer choice does not presume future outcomes based on past results, and
also fails the Premise Test. Although the conclusion is properly given in the future tense, the premise
is a conditional statement relating being a trained swimmer to being a lifeguard.

[stsai]

Q24. "The local radio station..."
I just want to make sure my thought process is correct: For this Parallel Reasoning question, are we suppose to tackle the answer choices in terms of the nature of each things talked about?---The stimulus talks about an event's likelihood, (A) (C) (E) are wrong because they talk about the nature/property/attribute of each thing mentioned. (B) is not right because it talks about pure odds/mathematical probability. So (D) is most close to the stimulus. Is this a correct way of thinking?

Thank you!

[Steve Stein]

It sounds like you have it pretty much figured out. Often an effective strategy in dealing with parallel reasoning questions is to put the argumentation in the abstract: In this case, something has not happened in the recent past, so we won't likely see a change next time around. Answer choices B and D are the only ones that presume future outcomes based on past results, and as you correctly pointed out, answer choice B deals with pure probability. This leaves answer choice D, which provides the right answer to this parallel reasoning question: stock prices have been lower on Mondays in the recent past, so we won't likely see a change next time (this coming Monday).

Let me know if that's clear--thanks!

[stsai]

Yes that's even more efficient. I just forgot that using abstraction on parallel reasoning makes things easier. Thanks, Steve!

[alee]

Hi guys,

I understood the stimulus as follows:
Premise 1: in the past 10 years the local radio station has never done better than 5th in the regional ratings
Premise 2: the local radio station has not changed musical format or key personnel, whilst competitors have
Conclusion: The local radio station will not win the regional ratings race this year.

Firstly, is premise 2, simply used to 'misdirect'? I ask this because it seems to have absolutely no bearing/relationship to the correct option, D. Or am I wrong?

Secondly, is the following rationale for ruling out the others correct?:
-A: refers to 'every swan I have ever seen', however the stimulus does not talk about every regional rating race, *only those of the last 10 years*
-B: A fair coin toss is a random event, however winning the regional ratings race *is not random*
-C and D: both of these are logically valid in the sense that the truth of the premises guarantees the truth of the conclusion. However, the stimulus is argument *is not logically valid* because it concludes that the local radio station will *with certainty* fail to win this year on the basis of previous results, whilst it seems possible that the conclusion could still fail to follow, *even if* we take Premise 1 and 2 as true.

Is that right? Thanks!

[Steve Stein]

Hi,

Thanks for your question. In that one, the author basically says, "Things have been this way for some time (and, incidentally, there's no particular reason to think that they will change) so this next outcome will be the same."

Answer choice A, as you correcly point out, deals with all swans that have been seen be the author, and all swans that exist--both of these are far to broad to parallel the stimulus.

Answer choice B, as you allude to, deals with statistical issues and is in fact flawed.

Answer choice C deals with basic conditional reasoning:
If you're a lion, then you're a mammal: lion mammal
Leo is a lion Leo is a mammal

This straightforward conditional reasoning is distinguishable from the comparison of past events to future events made by the author of the stimulus.

Correct answer choice D, much like the author of the stimulus, draws conclusions about the next future event based on recent past events.

Answer choice E provides a conditional rule, much like incorrect answer choice C.
Lifeguard trained swimmer
Next lifeguard at the local pool: Lifeguard trained swimmer

Let me know if that makes sense--thanks!

~Steve

[GLMDYP]

For this question, I think (B) is appropriate. Both (B) and (D) have passage of time involved, and both make predictions respectively. However, (B) is superior because the stimulus takes control of variables into account (the station's manager has not responded to its dismal ratings by changing... top radio personalities) and for (B) no condition will subject to change on the seventh flip because a coin is a coin. (D) simply predicts that stock prices will be lower this coming Monday but as we know, stock market is subject to many changes and thus should not be considered to be a more precise analogy of stimulus than (B).
Thanks!

[Steve Stein]

Hi,

In that one, the author provides that the station hasn't placed in the top four any time in the past decade, the station's approach has remained static, while the competition has continued to respond to the public.

Basically, since they havent done well with ratings in the past, and nothing really has changed, they probably won't win this year.

The problem with answer choice (B) is that is deals with a random event. With a fair coin toss, the chances remain 50/50 regardless of the past. Perhaps you've heard the riddle: a fair coin was tossed 100 times, and landed on heads all 100 tosses. What are the chances that the next toss will land heads up? 50/50.

I hope that's helpful! Please let me know whether this is clear--thanks!

~Steve

[GLMDYP]

Thank you Steve! This is very helpful!

[deck1134]

Hi PowerScore,

Can we just assume that all of the other stuff about managers responding to ratings is just a distraction? I was concerned because none of the answers dealt with more than one premise