#9 - No member of the Richardson Theater Group is both a

[rabedelahad]

I was able to narrow this one down to C and D, I ended up choosing D and am confused as to why C is the right answer. Thank you!

[AthenaDalton]

Great question!

The flaw in the stimulus is that the speaker sets up a sort of false dilemma.

We learn in the stimulus that members of the Theater Group cannot be both a performer and an administrator (notably, we do not learn whether there are jobs at the Theater Group other than performer and administrator, such as usher, set designer, director, etc). We then learn that Leon and Marta are members of the Theater Group, and the stimulus reasons that since they are not administrators, they must be performers.

The flaw here is assuming that there are only two jobs available at the theater company. Just because a person cannot hold both Jobs A and B at the same time does not mean that Jobs A and B are the only jobs that exist at the Theater Company.

Answer choice (C) parallels this flawed reasoning by creating a false dilemma. In (C), we are told that companies cannot have their headquarters in both Canada and Mexico (notably, we do not learn whether a company could have its headquarters in a country other than Canada or Mexico, like the USA, France, or China). We then learn that the Dumone Company is not headquartered in Mexico, and speaker concludes that the company must instead be headquartered in Canada. The flaw in (C) is assuming that since a company cannot have its headquarters in both Mexico and Canada, it can only have its headquarters in one of these two countries. The author overlooks the possibility that Corporate HQ could be located in dozens or hundreds of other locations.

Answer choice (D) is an incorrect answer choice because it actually uses correct reasoning. Since we're told to look for a parallel flaw by the question prompt, the correct answer choice must contain a flaw.

In answer choice (D), we're told that no attorney can represent both Company D and Company T at the same time (probably because these companies are suing each other). We then learn that Ms. Tseung represents Company D. We can conclude with certainty that she does not also represent Company T, since we know that a lawyer cannot represent both Companies T and D at the same time.

I hope that helps clarify things. Good luck studying!

Athena Dalton

[jennifersuh]

Hi!

The stimulus starts with: No member of the Richardson Theater Group is both a performer and an administrator. Would this be diagrammed like so?:
perf + adm --> NOT member
Cont: member -> NOT perf or NOT adm

Or would it be reversed? How would you know to diagram a conditional statement like this one?

[Robert Carroll]

Jennifer,

Both your diagrams are perfect! If you want general rules, realize we have the word "no", which creates a conditional. "No things with quality A also have quality B" means the same as "Anything with quality A does not have quality B," or:

A notB

Here, "No member is both a performer and administrator" translates, as above, to "Anything who is a member is not(both performer and administrator)", and, because the "not" applies to the whole compound, "and" becomes "or" when we negate:

member performer OR administrator

That's just your second conditional, so that was perfect, and the first is the contrapositive of that, so both are perfect!

Robert Carroll