#25 - All any reporter knows about the accident is what

[JKing]

Actually, yes that does help. Even though I still got the right answer, my thought process on C really wasn't on the mark, which means I could have just as easily been wrong. Thank you

[est15]

I can spot a mistaken negation or mistaken reversal, but I'm having trouble applying that to the answer choices, i.e. figuring out which of the answer choices describes the mistaken negation or mistaken reversal. This is happening not just for this problem but also other ones too.

So for this particular problem, I diagrammed the premises as:

told every reporter everything no reporter knows any more than any other reporter no reporter can scoop all of the other reporters

and the conclusion as:

~told every reporter everything some reporter can scoop all of the other reporters

which is a mistaken negation. But before I look at any of the answer choices, I want to prephrase an answer in my head, and I don't know exactly what I should be looking for. How do I express what I know to be a mistaken negation into possible answer choices that are within the context of this problem?

[Lucas Moreau]

Hello, est15,

This question is more difficult than most Flaw in the Reasoning questions, because of the way the question stem is set up.

You correctly identified the Mistaken Negation present in the stimulus - well done there, by the by - but the question stem is not a traditional one. Rather than asking for the nature of the specific flaw, which answer choice would probably look like "It confuses a sufficient and a necessary condition", it asks for a possibility, given the truth of all premises, that would show the argument's conclusion to be false.

Prephrasing is an extremely useful skill to have, but it will not work the same way one hundred percent of the time. Especially in the last five questions of any section, some questions are strange and unconventional, and standard prephrasing might not be as useful as it otherwise would be.

In this case, you would be able to prephrase by asking trying to figure out a possible scenario within the scope of the premises that would render the conclusion false. For example, perhaps the press agent told no reporter anything. Or perhaps the press agent told every reporter the exact same information, just not everything about the accident. Either of those is consistent with answer choice E and might help lead you to it.

This is a very tough question, but you're doing well. Hang in there!

Hope that helps,
Lucas Moreau

[ashutosh_73]

Hi, I didn't attempt this one using conditionals. I was stuck between C & E, and below is why i eliminated (C).

Argument says: ''All any reporter knows about the accident is what the press agent has said.

''C'' says: Some reporter may have been told something from someone other than the reporter.

(C) seems to go against the premise, hence i eliminated this option.

Is it sound OR i misread?

[Dana D]

Hey Ashutosh,

Yes, answer choice (C) seems to contradict the stimulus which means it is inconsistent with the facts of the argument and should be eliminated. Additionally, even if answer choice (C) were true, it is not the flaw of the argument here, so it is incorrect.