#21 - The trees always blossom in May if April rainfall

[josuecarolina]

I don't understand this question, and often get these kinds of questions incorrect.
First, I know I SHOULD know this after a month of powerscore classes....but what kind of question is this? And what is the flaw in the reasoning here? It seems to me that the flaw is that if it hasn't rained more than 5, then the resevoir DEFINIITELY isn't full, but the flowers are only NOT certainly in bloom.

But I don't see the similar reasoning flaw in the answers.

[Steve Stein]

Hi,

Good question--that's a fairly specific conditional reasoning flaw, in which the author provides one sufficient condition that leads to two necessary conditions...

trees blossom in May
April rainfall greater than 5 cm and
reservoirs full on May 1

...and then uses the two necessary conditions to draw an invalid negation :

reservoirs NOT full on May 1 trees NOT blossom in May

Similarly, the correct answer choice provides two necessary conditions...

garlic fresh
Garlic in pantry and
potatoes on the stairs

...and an analogous invalid conclusion:

potatoes NOT on stairs garlic NOT still fresh.

Good question! Please let me know whether this clears it up--thanks!

~Steve

[josuecarolina]

Wow, yes, I got it now. I chose the gas pedal .

I don't know though, because I think the amount of diagramming I would have to have done may have killed another question for me...I am barely squeaking by 25 LR questions in 35 min...sometimes not (I didn't get to the last 2 on my first seciton of my practice test, but made a good guess on one of them )

It's good to understand, but I don't see how I could have processed that quickly enough to have gotten it right without sacrificing time I didn't have.

Bleh. I need to upgrade my brain to flash or something.

[Steve Stein]

Hi,

Your response is totally valid (but not the part about the brain upgrade!)--some questions will take a little bit of time to assess no matter how much you're prepared. A parallel reasoning question with somewhat complex conditional reasoning--you might want to consider moving on when you see this sort of question, and come back to it later if you have the time.

I hope that's helpful--let me know. Thanks!

~Steve

[josuecarolina]

you hit the nail on the head Steve. I took the June 2008 today, and only got a 164...and a majority of the questions I got wrong were ones I didn't have time to answer. I think I must have speant 3-4 minutes on a parallel reasoning question on one LG section. I am going to take your advice and skip them when I see them, and hopefully bank some nice time to come back to them.

Thanks!!!