#4 - Principle: The executive in a given company whose

[Administrator]

Complete Question Explanation

Must Be True—PR. The correct answer choice is (D)

This stimulus consists of a single principle, not an argument. In this Must Be True—Principle question, our task will be to find the answer choice containing a factual scenario that best reflects the application of that principle. To generate our prephrase, we have to break the principle down into easily testable pieces.

First, the principle applies when evaluating the appropriateness of a company executive’s compensation package. We are told that the compensation is likely, or probably, too high if it is “determined by advice of an external consultant” who “also has business interests with the company the executive manages.” This principle is concerned with a consultant currying favor with the executive in order to benefit in other business dealings with the company.

As mentioned above, this is a Must Be True—Principle question. Our job is the find the answer choice that best conforms to the principle. So, we need to look for a scenario with the following elements: 1) the conclusion that a company’s executive is probably overcompensated; based on 2) evidence that an external consultant was used to determine the compensation; and 3) that same consultant has other business interests with the company. An answer choice missing any of these three pieces will be incorrect. Only the correct answer choice will match all three elements.

Answer choice (A): We can eliminate this answer choice very quickly, because its conclusion is definitive rather than probabilistic: the president is “definitely overpaid.” Further, the evidence used to reach this conclusion is the comparison between the president’s pay and that of the company’s workers, rather than the use of a potentially biased external consultant to determine the compensation.

Answer choice (B): This answer choice is incorrect because it bases its conclusion on evidence that the president’s current compensation is based on old financial data that may no longer be relevant. There is no mention of an external consultant in this answer choice, just like the external consultant was absent from answer choice (A).

Answer choice (C): Here, the answer choice assumes that the reverse of the principle is true, that if a potentially biased external consultant is not used, then the executive is probably not overcompensated. However, the reverse of the principle is not necessarily true just because the principle, as stated, was true.

Answer choice (D): This is the correct answer choice because it matches all three elements from the stimulus. The probabilistic conclusion, that the president is “probably overpaid,” is based on evidence that the president’s compensation was determined following the advice of an external consultant who has other contracts with the president’s company.

Answer choice (E): In this case, the definitive conclusion—that the president is definitely not overpaid—is inconsistent with the probabilistic nature of the principle. Also, this answer choice has the same weakness as answer choice (C), i.e., treating the reverse of the principle as if it were also true.

[Charlotte54]

Hi!

How does this question differ from Section 4 problem #23? Here, C is wrong because the opposite of the principle was assumed to be true, but it seems as the correct answer from 23 also assumes that the opposite of the principle was assumed true.

[James Finch]

Hi Charlotte,

This problem (#4) contains conditional reasoning. When dealing with conditional reasoning, we can only say with certainty that the necessary condition is true (or "likely" true in this case) when we know the sufficient condition is true, and contrapositively, that when we know the necessary condition to be false, that the sufficient condition must be false as well. If we know the necessary condition to be true, or the sufficient condition to be false, we don't actually know anything about the other condition, and assuming we did would be either a Mistaken Reversal or Mistaken Negation.

Here we need only find the conditional relationship that mirrors the one given in the stimulus, as this is a parallel reasoning question. With question #23 in Section 4, we have a more complex stimulus. We need to link one of the two conditionals presented in the "Problem" with the conditional given in the "Principle", then look for those elements in the correct answer choice. To get there, we ultimately need to chain A B C, then use the A C inference and its contrapositive, C A to arrive at the correct answer. If you have any other questions about that particular, just go ahead and ask on them on that question's forum.

Hope this helps!

[rachelbernard]

In eliminating E, I'm confused by what you mean by "treating the reverse of the principle as if it were also true." The principle uses conditional logic, so there exists a contrapositive of the conditional (not likely overpaid --> consultant does not have interests with the same company) that is also true. I ultimately ruled out E because the language felt too strong, but want to understand if there was another reason for ruling it out that I'm missing.

[Luke Haqq]

Hi rachelbernard!

I'd be happy to expand on the language of "treating the reverse of the principle as if it were also true" in the answer choices above.

The conditional reasoning in the principle can be stated as follows:

outside consultant AND financial interests w/ same company likely overpaid

The contrapositive of this would be:

likely overpaid outside consultant OR financial interests w/ same company

When possible, it is worth trying to separate variables like this. It's not that it will be absolutely essential to getting the right answer on this question, but it's worth noting that such a formulation is slightly different and could potentially be more illuminating.

The reason that answer choice (E) is wrong is that we would want the "likely overpaid" to be on the right side of the arrow (that is, as a necessary rather than a sufficient condition). If the principle (or its contrapositive) gave us that on the right side of the arrow, then it is possible that (E) would have been the correct answer. However, the conclusion in (E) is that a certain executive "is definitely not overpaid." For example, in order for (E) to have been a contender, the principle given would have needed to be something like:

A OR B overpaid

That is, if an exec had traits A or B, then we'd know that the exec was not overpaid. Again, however, in the actual principle, we only have overpaid on the left side. The language "treating the reverse of the principle as if it were also true" means that this answer choice reverses the conditional reasoning and incorrectly places overpaid as a necessary condition. When the principle's contrapositive is diagrammed correctly, overpaid is instead a sufficient condition.

Answer choice (C) does the same thing--it makes a conclusion about someone being not overpaid, when the principle instead only allows us to make a conclusion about someone being overpaid.

Lastly, you're absolutely right in feeling that the language in answer (E) was too strong. The strength of words used in the principle is "likely to be overcompensated," whereas answer (E) uses the stronger conclusion "definitely not overpaid." Granted, (E) is also incorrect for the reasons explained, but it's great that the change in language of the conclusion stood out to you, as that is a compelling reason for eliminating it--keep up the good work!