Maria won this year’s local

Answer choices

1. A

   Unrelated To Goal7% picked this

   Sue did not train as hard as

   We need a rule that proves that Maria "trained hard", but this is a comparative idea in Relative language. This proves that "Maria trained harder than Sue did", but that doesn't prove she trained hard. Bill Gates is poorer than Jeff Bezos, but that doesn't mean that Bill Gates is poor.

   7%
2. B

   Illegal Reversal15% picked this

   If Maria trained hard, she would win the

   We need a rule that proves that Maria "trained hard", so that concept has to be on the right of the arrow. Since this has "trained hard" on the left (the if signifies the sufficient, left-side idea), it's useless to us. If we had a rule that said, "If Maria won the sailboat race, then she trained hard", that would take what we know and output the conclusion we're trying to prove. But this answer is an illegal reversal of that.

   15%
3. C

   Correct73% picked this

   Maria could beat a four-time winner only if she

   Why this is right

   We need a rule that proves that Maria "trained hard", so that concept has to be on the right of the arrow. Since this has "trained hard" on the left (the only if signifies the necessary, right-side idea), it's worth looking at. It says this: if beat a four ? trained hard time winner Is the trigger idea applicable to Maria? Did she beat a four-time winner? Yes, she beat Sue, who won the four previous years. According to this rule, that means that Maria trained hard. So we proved the conclusion! (If you're beating yourself up, thinking, "How were we supposed to know to use the four-time winner part of the premise?", we weren't supposed to know. We're supposed to stay flexible with what the correct answer puts on the left hand side. We can't always predict the trigger language. We just ask ourselves whether the trigger is applicable to the thing we're talking about in the conclusion -- in this case, Maria. We are not flexible when it comes to the right side, though. We have to prove "trained hard", so the right side needs to be saying that or something definitionally equivalent.)

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

   73%
4. D

   Unrelated To Goal3% picked this

   If Sue trained hard, she would win the

   We're trying to prove that Maria trained hard, and this is a rule that solely applies to Sue, so it's useless to our purposes.

   3%
5. E

   Unrelated To Goal3% picked this

   Sue is usually a faster sailboat racer

   We need a rule that proves that Maria "trained hard", so that concept has to be on the right of the arrow. Since this answer doesn't even deal with the concept of "trained hard", it's useless to us.

   3%