#12 - The foreign minister of Zeria announced today that her

[Administrator]

Complete Question Explanation

Parallel Reasoning-CE. The correct answer choice is (D)

This Parallel question contains cause and effect reasoning that is then shown not to be true. A purported cause is given—"flagrant violations of human rights"—and then an effect—Zeria's severing of diplomatic relations. The next premise demonstrates an example situation where the cause is present, but the effect is not. The conclusion then follows that this cause cannot be the exclusive clause. In looking for the correct answer, we can look for cause and effect reasoning that is shown to be false or incomplete.

Answer choice (A): This answer choice also contains cause and effect reasoning, but the reasoning is never attack. In the stimulus, another cause is present without the effect occurring, and that does not happen here. We do not know if, in fact, eating breakfast harms anyone's health. Unlike the stimulus, the answer never tells us whether the effect (bad for someone's health) exists or not for the parents; we just know that they almost never eat breakfast.

Answer choice (B): You can eliminate this answer almost immediately because it contains a different kind of reasoning. Professor Walsh says most handwriting is difficult to read, not all. There is no clear cause and effect reasoning here because the handwritings change.

Answer choice (C): This answer choice also contains cause and effect reasoning that is debunked, but it is done in a different way. In the stimulus, the cause is shown to be present in another example where the effect does not occur, demonstrating that it cannot be the exclusive cause of the first effect. In this example, the author is attempting to demonstrate that the cause cannot logically exist because there was food available.

Answer choice (D): This is the correct answer choice. A purported cause and effect relationship is shown to be false because the author offers another example of socializing with coworkers (the same cause) that is not rejected as imprudent (a different effect).

Answer choice (E): Again, this answer contains cause and effect reasoning, but it involves a different type of reasoning. It deals with a matter of degree —"a new low"—so it is not a sound argument. Although teachers' salaries have always been low, it could be that reaching this "new low" fully explains the decline in good teachers.

[jgray]

Greetings,
Initially, D was a contender, but then I remembered that I needed a causal relationship. I then ruled out D due to not seeing the C&E. What indicators of the causal relationship did I miss?
Thank you.

[Robert Carroll]

jgray,

The wording in answer choice (D) is similar to that in the stimulus and the other answer choices except for the phrase "on the grounds that". This is the purported cause of Armand's behavior, so this is the causal indicator in this answer choice. Armand claims this is the reason, "because of that" he didn't go.

Robert Carroll

[biskam]

so is C incorrect because it identifies the alternate cause, aka food being available or not, whereas the stimulus and D do not?

[Jennifer Janowsky]

biskam,

Yes, that is essentially it. In the stimulus and (D), another situation was presented in which the cause but not the effect occurred. However, in (C) the cause of hunger is removed rather than the effect of theft.

[lsnewbie]

Hello PS,
I have been going over the explanations to the answer choices for some time now and I still don't understand the explanation for C. What role does the sentence "in this case food was otherwise readily available" play in this stimulus? As I understand from the first sentence, the cause here is hunger and the effect is stealing. In the second sentence, the cause again is hunger and the effect is stealing, on condition that food is not readily available. But since the effect occurs again, we can't say that when the cause occurs, the effect does not occur as we can say with the stimulus and choice D, which makes this option incorrect. Is my reasoning correct?
Thanks,
JT

[James Finch]

Hi JT,

So with parallel questions, it helps to abstract the stimulus out completely to understand exactly how the logic works, then apply those parts to the answer choices to see which one actually fits. Here, the stimulus is saying that a sole cause is given by an individual for an action, but that can't be true, because there are other instances in which this cause is present and the individual doesn't act in the same manner, so there must be at least one other alternate cause. Applying this structure to the answer choices, we can see that:

(A): Deals with the parents' hypocrisy, rather than their actual concern for Henry's health. Flawed reasoning, and different from the stimulus. Loser.

(B): "Most" is conflated with all, and makes this flawed reasoning again, and distinct from the stimulus. Loser.

(C): James gives a sole cause (hunger) for his action (stealing). However, the rebuttal given is a conditional statement, that only allow hunger as a cause if food isn't readily available. As food was readily available, hunger couldn't have been a cause. While it works logically, it's not the same as the stimulus. Loser.

(D): An explanation is given for an (in)action, but undermined by an example of a similar action done despite the same cause (bad to socialize with coworkers) being present. Same basic logic as the stimulus, so our correct answer.

(E): Conflates absolutes and relative differences (low pay vs lower pay) and thus flawed and different from the stimulus. Loser.

Hope this clears things up!

[Leela]

biskam,

Yes, that is essentially it. In the stimulus and (D), another situation was presented in which the cause but not the effect occurred. However, in (C) the cause of hunger is removed rather than the effect of theft.

Could someone please explain this difference in greater detail? I had prephrased an alternate cause.

[Jay Donnell]

Hi leela!

The argument in the stimulus was based around an argument that an alleged cause couldn't have been truly responsible for a given effect, as seen by another instance where the same cause existed but the effect was absent.

If it was really true that the reason (cause) for Zeria abandoning its relations with Nandalo was its flagrant violations of human rights, then you'd reason that Zeria would also abandon relations with other countries with similar human rights violations. However, since we know that Zeria maintains relations with countries that have even worse human rights issues than Nandalo, then it stands to reason that the committing of human rights violations was not the exclusive reason (cause) for why Zeria severed its ties with Nandalo.

It's like an argument that claims that the reason I hate the new movie Holmes and Watson is that it stars Will Ferrel and John C. Reilly together. However, since I am a big fan of both Step Brothers and Talladega Nights, both of which starring Will Ferrel and John C. Reilly, then the fact that those actors are the principle stars of the movie is not the exclusive reason why I hate the movie Holmes and Watson.

My analogy and the argument in the stimulus work very similarly, and neither offer an alternative cause for the stated effect. We just know that the alleged cause is ruled out as the primary reason, as that cause exists in other circumstances that don't have the original effect.

I hope that helps! And I mean this in all seriousness, don't see Holmes and Watson.... it's unbearably bad!

[Bruin96]

Hello,

When attempting to do this problem I was down to B & D. I did not pick up on the causal reasoning in the stimulus which I now understand. However, with answer choice D I was a bit hesistant because it introduced new information that was not similiar to that of the stimulus. When the answer choice included "Maria", I was more hesitant.

For answer choice D, would this be an accurate representation for the cause & effect outlined?
C: Helen inviting Armando
E: Armado declining because socializing with coworkers is imprudent