Logical Reasoning

PT8 · S4 · Q12 It is clear that none

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It is clear that none of the volleyball players at yesterday’s office beach party came to work today since everyone who played volleyball at that party got badly sunburned and no one at work today is even slightly sunburned.

Conclusion (it's clear that)

None of the volleyball players at yesterday's office beach party came to work today.

Evidence (since)

Everyone who played volleyball at that party got badly sunburned.

Nobody at work today is even slightly sunburned.

Evaluate

Conversationally we might describe this argument as,

But since the argument has conditional logic and copycat concepts, this argument would lend itself well to diagramming.

The two premises chain together, once we contrapose either one of them.

P1: played VB at party → sunburned P2: at work today → ~sunburned

P1 and P2 chained: played VB at party → sunburned → ~at work today

The conclusion just connects the head to tail of this conditional chain C: played VB at party → ~at work today

Goal

Let's look for an argument with two conditional premises that chain together (we'll probably need to contrapose one), and a conclusion that just provides the head to tail inference.

Prem: A → B Prem: C → ~B Conc: A → ~C

If the answers actually copy the quantifiers, then we can look for it in this style:

Prem: All the A's had B. Prem: None of the C's had B. Conc: None of the A's are C.

12.

Which one of the following exhibits a pattern of reasoning that most closely parallels that in the argument above?

Since everyone employed by TRF
Weaker Evidence Match / Bad Validity Match
This isn't tempting at a glance, because it has two All premises and No conclusion. We were looking for an All/No mix of premises, and a No conclusion. Prem: All the A's had B. Prem: None of the C's had B. Conc: None of the A's are C. This answer does have two premises that chain together, to give us this head to tail inference: offered insurance from TRF → saw a dentist The conclusion is almost a contrapositive of that: ~see a dentist → ~employed by TRF But this argument isn't valid because the original trigger is "employed by TRF and given opportunity to purchase dental insurance". There could be a lot of people employed by TRF who weren't given the opportunity to purchase dental insurance, so it's very possible that they failed to see a dentist.
15% picked this
Since no one who was
Bad Evidence / Validity Match
These two premises don't chain together, so it's a non-starter from there. P: Office Mgrs → ~Promotion P: Promoted → Attended Banquet All we could do with those two conditionals is say "If you were Promoted, we know you attended the banquet and that you weren't an Office Manager".
12% picked this
Since the Donnely report was
Bad Evidence / Validity Match
We don't have two conditional premises here, so there's no chain possible. P: John's Group → Timely Reputation P: D report wasn't finished on time.
11% picked this
Correct
Everyone with an office on
Why this is right
This isn't tempting at first glance based on quantifiers, because both premises are No/None, and the conclusion is All. In the original argument, the two premises are a mix of All / None and the conclusion is None. But the two premises do chain together, P: Office on 2nd → Works 4 Prez P: Works 4 Prez → ~July Off Giving us the potential head to tail inference: Office on 2nd → ~July Off That is the conclusion! So this didn't perfectly copy the quantifiers from the original, but it contains the essence of why the original argument had valid logic: - there are two conditional premises that chain - the CONC provides a valid head to tail inference Had there been an answer that did that and copied the Quantifiers, it would be even more similar, but this one definitely captures the logical essence of the original.
Skill tested: Parallel · how this choice captures the argument's function is the move to repeat next time.
60% picked this
Since all of the people
Bad Evidence
This argument only has one premise, so it's definitely not going to give us two conditional premises that chain together.
1% picked this

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