Logical Reasoning

PT145 · S4 · Q15 Outsiders in any field often believe

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Outsiders in any field often believe that they can bring in fresh, useful solutions that have been overlooked by insiders.

Statements

On Inference questions, we're scanning for Conditional / Causal wording primarily (mathematical and pivot wording, secondarily).

3 conditionals

Universal: attempts at creativity .. are futile Rule: A's that are B are C A and B → C

Attempting ~Relevant creativity + experience → Futile

-------------

Trigger word: only Rule: A happens only by B A → B

~Really Und Problems → ~Solve problems

--------------

Trigger word: no one Rule: No one who is A is B A → ~B

~Experience → ~Really Understand Problems

When we have more than one conditional, we check to see whether they chain together (do they have an overlapping term?)

The last two both talk about "really understanding problems", so we look for a chain, and it's there.

~Really ~Solve ~Experience → Understand → Problems Problems

The first conditional basically gives us the same relationship (without relevant experience → attempt at solution is futile).

The other thing we look for with conditionals is a fact we can apply it to. Did they talk about people who lack experience? (or we could trigger the contrapositive if they talked about people who did solve problems)

The first sentence told us that outsiders, who by definition lack experience, often think they can bring fresh eyes to a problem that come up with a useful solution.

According to our conditional chain, though, these outsiders without experience won't really understand the problem, so they won't be able to solve them.

Goal

The correct answer will probably either reward us for connecting the chain by saying "If no experience, can't solve problem", or it will reward us for applying that fact to Outsiders by saying "Sorry, you can't solve these problems".

15.

Which one of the following is most strongly supported by the information above?

  1. The more experience a person

    Too Strong

    Too Strong: the more x, the more y Relative vs. Absolute This answer is making a switch from talking about experience and creativity in yes/no (absolute) terms to talking about it in relative (more/less) terms. We don't have any information about more experience being connected to more creativity. The more x, the more y is a very strong idea. It basically means you could graph these two factors infinitely in both directions.

    19% picked this

  2. Those people who are experienced

    Too Specific: rarely Fake Opposite

    Since we were told that people without experience will not be able to come up with successful creative solutions, this trap answer is trying to bait us into picking it by flipping those ideas into opposite form: people with experience will usually find creative solutions. We have zero information about people with experience, so we certainly can't comment on how frequently they do or don't overlook creative solutions.

    4% picked this

  3. Correct

    Creative solutions in a field

    Why this is right

    This is just a clever rephrasing of our prediction: Outsiders will not be able to solve the problems. You could diagram this answer choice, "always" is an arrow (a necessary indicator): Creative solution ? experience in field The contrapositive would look like our chain, or like our first conditional: no experience in field ? not finding solution

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

    63% picked this

  4. The experience required for effective

    Too Strong: does not vary

    Saying that the complexity of the field does not vary the level of experience required for effective problem-solving is saying, across all fields, no matter the complexity, there is an identical amount of experience required for effective problem-solving. That is a crazy-extreme idea that we certainly can't derive from what we read.

    4% picked this

  5. Outsiders should be properly trained

    Out of Scope: should / responsibility

    There's nothing normative (should / ought / right / wrong) in any of these claims, so we have no ammunition for saying "should". Also, we were only talking about whether outsiders could solve problems, not whether they can be given some responsibility in that field.

    11% picked this

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