Logical Reasoning

PT149 · S4 · Q23 No nonfiction book published

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No nonfiction book published by Carriage Books has ever earned a profit.

Conclusion (clearly)

~Carriage Books did not publish a nonfiction book last year.

Evidence (since)

Carriage Books earned a profit on every book it published last year, and no nonfiction book published by Carriage Books has ever earned a profit.

Evaluate

After reading the argument on a Parallel question, we have to decide whether we think it would be more effective to make an Algebra Recipe for the argument or to just boil it down to a Principle or Reasoning Pattern.

My general rule of thumb is that if there's conditional logic or quantifiers or Overlapping Ideas, then I'll go for Algebra.

The first two premises are quantified/conditional logic (no / every). And there are Overlapping Ideas: Carriage Books, nonfiction book, profit, publish are all mentioned at least twice. So if we assign them some variables, we can look at the logic.

Premise 1 No X's from Thing A have ever been Y. For Thing A (all time): if X → no Y

Premise 2 Every Z from Thing A's last year was Y. For Thing A (last year): if Z → yes Y

Conclusion Thing A last year didn't have any Z's that were X For Thing A (last year): if Z → not X

Since Carriage Books is the common ingredient to all three claims, I would focus more on the movings parts.

Nonfiction is never profitable. N → ~P Last yr's books were profitable. Last yr = P So, last yr's books were fiction. Last yr = ~N

Goal

The form seems to be to provide a very broad conditional (N → ~P), then tell us about something specific (P) that would trigger the contrapositive (P → ~N), and then conclude the outcome of that contrapositive (~N).

23.

The pattern of reasoning in the argument above is most similar to that in which one of the following arguments?

  1. No actor represented by the

    Movie vs. Major Movie

    Ouch, this is mean. I would keep this on a first pass. We get our broad conditional: For all time, Ms. R's actors never win important roles in major movies. We get our specific contrapositive fact: Last year, Ms. R's actors won some important roles. The correct conclusion would be: Last year, Ms. R's actors were not in major movies. But it's a flawed conclusion to say they weren't in any movies. They might have landed these important roles in small time, obscure movies.

    15% picked this

  2. No hotel owned by the

    Weaker Logic Match Lacks Timeframe

    This is an airtight argument that involves applying a broad rule to a specific fact. But the relationship between the two premises is not as tight as it could be. ORIGINAL P1 - No nonfiction has ever been profitable P2 - Last year, X's were profitable THIS ANSWER P1 - No hotels by BG ever serve biz travel P2 - X is a hotel by BG In the original, the second premise dealt with the end of the No statement. In this answer, the second premise deals with the beginning of the No statement. This is definitely worth keeping on a first pass, but ultimately this difference makes it an inferior answer. The other difference is that the second premise and the conclusion are not dealing with a specific period of time, the way the original and the correct answer do.

    11% picked this

  3. Correct

    Pranwich Corporation has never given

    Why this is right

    ORIGINAL P1 - No nonfiction has ever been profitable P2 - Last year, X's were profitable Conc - X's were not nonfiction THIS ANSWER P1 - No marketing emp has ever been given bonus P2 - Last year, X's were given bonus Conc - X's were not marketing emp X's, of course, here would be the "systems analysts". If we were thinking back to our original recipe of, P1 A ? B P2 X is not B. C X is not A. That would match up here with P1 Marketing ? No Bonus P2 Sys Analysts were not (No Bonus). C Sys Analysts were not (Marketing). Clearly, the double negative is annoying, and the first premise was disguised by using "never" instead of "No" to create the same negative relationship.

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

    56% picked this

  4. James Benson has never done

    Weaker Logic Match No Timeframe

    This argument does involve applying a broad rule to a specific fact. But the relationship between the two premises is not as tight as it could be. ORIGINAL Premise 1 No nonfiction has ever been profitable Premise 2 Last year, X's were profitable THIS ANSWER Premise 1 No non-biz-affiliate is ever File Maintained Premise 2 X is a non-biz-affiliate. In the original, the second premise dealt with the end of the No statement. In this answer, the second premise deals with the beginning of the No statement. This is definitely worth keeping on a first pass, but ultimately this difference makes it an inferior answer. It's also maybe unclear whether "doesn't maintain a file" is actually equivalent to "doesn't have a file". The other difference is that the second premise and the conclusion are not dealing with a specific period of time, the way the original and the correct answer do.

    11% picked this

  5. Conway Flooring has never installed

    Invalid Logic No Timeframe

    This is not airtight logic, so we don't need to scrutinize its structure. Just because Conway Flooring has never installed hardwood in Woodridge (despite having had lots of customers in Woodridge), that doesn't prove the company doesn't offer that kind of flooring. Maybe the customers in Woodridge are too low-budget (or too ritzy) to request hardwood flooring, but Conway still provides hardwood flooring to other cities. This also lacks the timeframe dimension of the original.

    6% picked this

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