Logical Reasoning

PT106 · S2 · Q6 The Rienzi, a passenger ship, sank

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The Rienzi, a passenger ship, sank as a result of a hole in its hull, possibly caused by sabotage.

Statements

Since this is Must Be True, we're prioritizing looking for black-and-white claims, so the "possibly caused" in the 1st sentence and "normally" in the 2nd sentence makes them less enticing starting points.

Even the 3rd statement is weak -- "X can be caused by Y".

The last two sentences offer us a conditional and a fact that triggers the contrapositive of that conditional.

conditional ship sinks deep in ocean and → implode ship wasn't fully flooded

contrapositive ~implode → ~sink or fully flooded

We were told that the Rienzi didn't implode. So it's either true that the R didn't sink, wasn't fully flooded or both.

However, we know that the R sank. So we're left with the idea that the R was fully flooded.

How was it fully flooded? Sabotage? Or maybe the water just entered the ship atypically fast? We can't say that part for sure, so let's not fall for any trap answers speculating about that.

Goal

Look for an answer saying "the Rienzi was fully flooded when it sank", or something else we could derive from the paragraph.

6.

Which one of the following must be true on the basis of the information above?

  1. The Rienzi was so constructed

    Out of Scope

    Out of Scope: how it was constructed We don't know anything about how this ship was constructed, whether or not any special attention was given to reducing the risk of sinking by impact.

    1% picked this

  2. If the Rienzi became fully

    Opposite

    We have derived that the Rienzi was fully flooded when it sank! This is saying, no, not until it had already sunk did it become fully flooded.

    18% picked this

  3. Correct

    If the Rienzi was not

    Why this is right

    This answer is really weird. I initially labeled it as broken, but here's how I think they'd defend it. Since we know the ship was fully flooded, we know that water entered the ship abnormally fast (since normally, water doesn't enter quickly enough for it to be fully flooded). Did it have to enter abnormally fast via sabotage? No, but it's still a true statement. Pretend you knew that Mary was having a party with cake, and that Kevin may or may not come. It is true to say: If Kevin doesn't come, then there will be cake at the party? Yes, it is true. It seems dumb, because it feels like it's setting up a false choice (there will be cake either way, so it's not like it's contingent on Kevin). You have conditionals that look like this: K doesn't come ? cake ~cake ? K comes We know there will be cake. So it is true that if Kevin doesn't come, there will be cake. The contrapositive is not possible, because there will be cake. Similarly, we know the Rienzi was fully-flooded, so we know that water flooded into it unusually fast. That may or may not have been due to sabotage (maybe the wood of the ship was unusually sun damaged / maybe strong winds led to quicker deterioration and flooding), but it will still be true to say, "If it wasn't sunk by sabotage, then water flowed in unusually fast".

    Skill tested: Must be True · how this choice captures the argument's function is the move to repeat next time.

    71% picked this

  4. If the Rienzi had sunk

    Unsupported Causal Relationship

    We know that if the Rienzi hadn't been fully flooded, it would have imploded. But we can't say "If it had sunk, it wouldn't have been fully flooded" (that's the opposite of common sense).

    8% picked this

  5. The Rienzi was so strongly

    Unsupported Causal Speculation

    This is speculating a reason why the Rienzi didn't implode. We're told that ANY ship that sinks that deep when not fully flooded will implode. So this answer would be contradicting that idea, if it's implying that some ships are made to resist imploding under deep-sea pressure. According to the conditional in the second to last sentence, the fact that the Rienzi didn't implode tells us that it was fully-flooded. And the idea is that being fully-flooded is what keeps the ship from imploding (if you're fully flooded, then the water pressure inside is just as strong as the water pressure from outside). Just like (A), we have no information about how the Rienzi was constructed.

    2% picked this

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