Logical Reasoning

PT117 · S3 · Q7 If you have no keyboarding

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If you have no keyboarding skills at all, you will not be able to use a computer.

Statements

Conditional (if) No keyboarding skills → cannot use a computer

Conditional (if) Cannot use computer → cannot write essays with a word processor

Evaluate

On Must Be True, we start by looking for any conditional claims. If we find more than one, such as we do here, we ask ourselves whether they chain together.

They do. They share a term, "cannot use a computer," which ends the first rule and starts the second. They chain to give us: ~Keyboard skills → Can't use Comp → Can't write essays with word processor.

The merged rule says that having no keyboarding skills at all guarantees you cannot write essays with a word processor.

The contrapositive of the chain would look like can write essays → can use comp→ keyboard skills w/ word process

Goal

We would guess that we'll be rewarded for chaining together these two rules, so it will probably provide the head to tail inference of the original chain - If no keyboard skills, then can't write essays with WP or of the contrapositive chain - If can write essays with WP, then have keyboard skills

7.

If the statements above are true, which one of the following must be true?

  1. If you have some keyboarding

    Reversal / Negation

    We know "if you don't have skills, you aren't able to write with WP" ~Keyboard skills → Can't use Comp → Can't write essays with word processor. This is providing an illegal negation of that: "if you do have skills, you are able to write with WP". This doesn't have to be true. It necessary to have some keyboarding skills, but that might not be enough on its own to guarantee that you can write essays (maybe you aren't able to string together words into sentences and paragraphs / maybe you don't understand how to open a new file on the word processing program).

    7% picked this

  2. If you are not able

    Reversal / Negation

    We know "If no keyboarding skills, then not able to write essays using WP" ~Keyboard skills → Can't use Comp → Can't write essays with word processor. This answer does an illegal reversal of that and says "If not able to write essays using WP, then no keyboarding skills" This reversal doesn't have to be true. Someone could have keyboarding skills but still be unable to write essays for some other reason (doesn't understand the word processor program / doesn't have an electrical outlet to plug the word processor into).

    5% picked this

  3. Correct

    If you are able to

    Why this is right

    This provides us with the head to tail of the contrapositive chain: can write essays → can use comp→ keyboard skills w/ word process If you can write essays with a WP, then you have some keyboarding skills.

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

    81% picked this

  4. If you are able to

    Reversal / Negation

    We were told "if you aren't able to use a computer, then you won't be able to write essays using WP." This is an illegal negation of that: "if you are able to use computer, then you (probably) will be able to write essays using WP".

    5% picked this

  5. If you are not able

    Reversal / Negation

    We were told "if you aren't able to use a computer, then you won't be able to write essays using WP." This is an illegal reversal of that: "if you aren't able to write essays with WP, then you aren't able to use a computer."

    2% picked this

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