Logical Reasoning

PT2 · S2 · Q13 If retail stores experience a decrease

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If retail stores experience a decrease in revenues during this holiday season, then either attitudes toward extravagant gift-giving have changed or prices have risen beyond the level most people can afford.

Premises

Conditionals (if) Retail revenues decrease → attitudes toward big gift-giving during holiday season have changed OR prices risen past what most can afford

Attitudes have changed → we all have something to celebrate

Prices have risen beyond → salaries have not kept what most can afford pace with rising prices

Evaluate

We're given three rules. First question when we have multiple rules is "do they chain together?"

Yes, sort of. We have a rule saying, A → B or C and then we have a rule for B would trigger and one for what C would trigger. B → D C → E

Putting those together we'd know A → B (and D), or C (and E)

We also get a Fact to Trigger a Rule in the question stem. Salaries have kept pace with rising prices. That's the same as ~E.

That seems to kill off one of the two possibilities in our Either / Or. We no longer have the option of saying "prices have risen past what most can afford" because salaries have actually kept pace with rising prices. This triggers the contrapositive of the last sentence and tells us that prices haven't risen beyond what people can afford.

So then our mega-conditional is reduced to just A → B (and D)

If stores have a decrease in revenue, then attitudes have changed and we have something to celebrate this season.

Goal

Let's look for something provable based on our updated version of that first rule, or look for the contrapositive outcome of the final sentence: prices haven't risen beyond what people can afford.

13.

Assume the premises above to be true. If salaries have kept pace with rising prices during the past year, which one of the following must be true?

Attitudes toward extravagant gift-giving have
Unknown Trigger
We would know that attitudes have changed if we knew that retail stores have had decreased revenues this holiday season, but since we hvaen't been told that, we have no idea if this is true.
15% picked this
Retail stores will not experience
Unsupported
How do we know retail stores haven't experienced a decrease in sales? The contrapositive of the original statement is attitudes haven't changed and → rev not decreased prices are still affordable We've only been told that prices are still affordable. We would need to also know that attitudes haven't changed in order to trigger this contrapositive and derive that revenue hasn't decreased.
7% picked this
Correct
Prices in retail stores have
Why this is right
This is what we get by combining the final sentence of the stimulus with the fact in the question stem. The contrapositive of the last sentence in the stimulus is: salaries have kept → prices haven't risen past pace w/ rising prices what most can afford The question stem told us that salaries have kept pace, which triggers this rule and tells us that prices haven't risen beyond what most can afford.
Skill tested: Must be True · how this choice captures the argument's function is the move to repeat next time.
69% picked this
Attitudes toward extravagant gift-giving have
Unsupported
We have no certainty when it comes to our remaining rule. We have, "If revenue is decreased, then attitudes have changed". This answer is making it seem like we know attitudes haven't changed and that we can then say that revenues won't decrease.
5% picked this
Either attitudes toward extravagant gift-giving
Unknown Trigger
We know for a fact that prices haven't risen beyond the level that most people can afford. So we'd have to interpret this answer as saying "we know for a fact that attitudes have changed". But we have no idea if that's true. We would only know that if we knew that revenues decreased this holiday season.
4% picked this

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