Chapter Text, Question #1

[myverdict]

Conditional Reasoning and Must Be True/Most Strongly Supported Problems

Problem 1: People with serious financial problems are so worried about money that they cannot be happy. Their misery makes everyone close to them - family, friends, colleagues - unhappy as well. Only if their financial problems are solved can they and those around them be happy.

The correct answer choice is (E): If people are happy, they do not have serious financial problems.

I understood the way the problem was solved in the book. However I solved it in a slightly different way. Please let me know if this could also be ok.

I directly created a diagram for the last sentence as
H = happy FPSD = Financial Problems Solved
Only if creates a necessary condition so the diagram would be H --------> FPSD

So my interpretation of this directly led me to the correct answer choice. FPSD for me meant that "they do not have serious financial problems."

Would this method cause a hindrance for other problems?

[Dave Killoran]

Hi Myverdict,

Thanks for the question! Yes, that actually works fine here. Most people wouldn't see it that way simply because there is a conditional sentence prior to the one in question, and it's hard to know that you should go to that second sentence and that it turns out that is the one that answers the problem. So, nothing wrong with how you did this here, but it's also not a method that could really be easily applied as a consistent approach to other questions, if that makes sense.

Thanks!