Logical Reasoning

PT127 · S2 · Q9 Rifka: We do not need to stop

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Rifka: We do not need to stop and ask for directions.

Evaluation

If they're asking us to describe the 2nd person's response, they usually want us to assess whether the 2nd person took issue with 1st person's conclusion, one of her premises, or one of her assumptions.

It seems here like Craig definitely disagrees with Rifka's conclusion. She says , he says "we do". (And I'd be willing to be that LSAC was proud of themselves for avoiding the male/female trope of the female who wants directions and the male who is too proud to admit that they're lost). It also kind of sounds like Craig disagrees with Rifka's assessment of whether or not they're lost too.

Goal

Craig is saying . So the function of his comment is to pretty much disagree with everything Rifka said.

9.

In the exchange above, the function of Craig's comment is to

  1. contradict the conclusion of Rifka's

    Bad Premise Match

    Craig does offer a reason to reject one of R's implicit premises. She is implicitly thinking that "we're not lost", and Craig is offering the reason "we are lost" to contradict R's conclusion.

    8% picked this

  2. Correct

    deny one of Rifka's implicit

    Why this is right

    Implicit = unstated, tacit. So an implicit premise = unstated premise, i.e. an assumption. Does Craig deny one of Rifka's assumptions? Yes. She is assuming that "we're lost". Her argument only consists of a conditional premise and a conclusion. R's premise: If we were not lost, we would not need to stop and ask for directions. (R's assumption: We are not lost.) R's conclusion: We do not need to stop and ask for directions. Craig says "it is a fact that we are lost", so he does deny her assumption and he arrives at a different conclusion, "We do need to stop".

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

    59% picked this

  3. imply that Rifka's argument is

    Weak Premise Match

    Craig does not seem to accept the truth of Rifka's premises. Rifka has one explicit premise, a conditional rule that Craig does not acknowledge he's accepting. And she has an implicit premise (we are not lost), which Craig is explicitly not accepting.

    27% picked this

  4. provide a counterexample to Rifka's

    Bad Premise Match

    Rifka does make a generalization, "If you are not lost, then you don't need to stop and ask for directions". Were Craig to have provided a counterexample to that, it would have sounded like, "Here's a case in which Person X was not lost, but Person X did need to stop and ask for directions." Craig isn't providing a counterexample to Rifka's rule; he's saying the rule doesn't apply in this case since they are lost. Counterexamples are cases in which the trigger applies, but the consequence doesn't. Craig is saying the trigger does not apply.

    0% picked this

  5. affirm the truth of the

    Bad Conclusion Match

    Craig is not noncommittal about Rifka's conclusion. He contradicts it.

    5% picked this

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