Logical Reasoning

PT149 · S1 · Q18 If the standards committee has a quorum

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If the standards committee has a quorum, then the general assembly will begin at 6:00 P.M. today.

Statements

conditionals: if (left side)

standards committee has quorum → general assembly begins at 6pm

awards committee has quorum → general assembly beings at 7pm

Evaluate

When we get multiple conditionals, we look to see whether they chain together or get triggered by any available facts.

There aren't any facts in this stimulus. Do these two rules have any overlapping ideas? Yes, they both talk about the General Assembly.

Would we chain them?

Yes, since the outcome of either rule triggers the contrapositive of the other.

stnd comm has quorum → gen assem @ 6pm → ~awards comm quorum

If the General Assembly begins at 6pm, then it doesn't begin at 7pm, and vice versa.

This one could probably be thought of more intuitively, without diagramming. Since these two rules have contradictory outcomes, they certainly can't both happen.

It is mutually exclusive that the standards committee and Awards committee have a quorum.

Goal

Look for an answer saying standards has quorum → ~awards committee has quorum awards has quorum → ~standards committee has quorum

(remember that it's possible that neither of them have a quorum)

18.

Which one of the following statements follows logically from the statements above?

  1. If the general assembly does

    Opposite

    This acts like we're sure at least one of them will have a quorum, but we don't have any rules that guarantee a quorum will take place. These rules tell us what happens if a quorum takes place, and they could guarantee that a quorum won't take place. But if the assembly doesn't being at 6pm, all we know is that the standards committee doesn't have a quorum. We have no way to say "if standards committee doesn't have quorum, then awards committee must". We just have a way to say "If standards committee does have quorum, then awards committee cannot" (and vice versa)

    8% picked this

  2. If the standards committee does

    Opposite

    This is literally the same as (awards committee), in terms of the illicit move it's trying to make. We have no way to say "if standards committee doesn't have quorum, then awards committee must". We just have a way to say "If standards committee does have quorum, then awards committee cannot" (and vice versa)

    3% picked this

  3. If the general assembly begins

    Reversal

    This acts like we're sure at least one of them will have a quorum, but we don't have any rules that guarantee a quorum will take place. We know "if standards committee has quorum, general assembly begins at 6", but this says "if general assembly begins at 6, standards committee has quorum"

    30% picked this

  4. If the general assembly does

    Opposite

    This acts like we're sure at least one of them will have a quorum, but we don't have any rules that guarantee a quorum will take place. If the general assembly doesn't begin at 7pm, then we know that the awards committee doesn't have a quorum. But we have no way to say "if awards committee doesn't have quorum, then standards committee must". We just have a way to say "If awards committee does have quorum, then standards committee cannot" (and vice versa)

    8% picked this

  5. Correct

    If the standards committee has

    Why this is right

    This is what we predicted. Since the two outcomes contradict each other, there's no way that both triggers can fire. Hence, if one trigger is true then the other is false. Or, if we want to see it derived standards committee quorum → general assembly at 6pm → ~awards committee quorum (~general assembly at 7pm)

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

    50% picked this

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