Q10 - Only people who are willing

[Celeste757]

hello!
i am confused on this one. picked d, but overall that was a guess... i could come up with:

mediation --> compromise (so then if no compromise --> no med)

and

compromise --> not ideology (so then ideology --> not compromise)

but that didnt help too much....

thank you!!!

[giladedelman]

Thanks for posting!

You were actually on the right track here. You spotted some conditional statements, and tried diagramming them:

not willing to compromise --> shouldn't undergo mediation

based on ideology --> not willing to compromise

That's a good first step. Now what we want to do is try hooking these statements together, to see if we can come up with any new connections:

based on ideology --> not willing to compromise --> shouldn't undergo mediation

Aha! Now we know that if your position is based on ideology, you shouldn't undergo mediation. That's exactly what (E) says, so it's correct.

(Notice that the second sentence of the stimulus is totally superfluous! This is not uncommon.)

(A) is incorrect because we don't know that the only two possible choices are mediation and litigation. Maybe you can solve your conflicts in other ways, or maybe you choose not to solve them.

(B) is the negated version of our valid inference.

(C) is unsupported because there's no connection between ideology and certainty of correctness.

(D) reverses some of the logic in the stimulus. We know that litigation is okay only if you're sure you're correct. But that doesn't mean you must purse litigation if you're sure you're correct; you might still choose mediation (provided you're willing to compromise, which could certainly coexist with being sure you're correct).

Does that clear this one up for you?

[mcrittell]

I thought the "only" in the first sent signified a sufficient condition ("only when" and "only if" would be necessary).

[iha1]

Thanks for posting!

You were actually on the right track here. You spotted some conditional statements, and tried diagramming them:

not willing to compromise --> shouldn't undergo mediation

based on ideology --> not willing to compromise

That's a good first step. Now what we want to do is try hooking these statements together, to see if we can come up with any new connections:

based on ideology --> not willing to compromise --> shouldn't undergo mediation

Aha! Now we know that if your position is based on ideology, you shouldn't undergo mediation. That's exactly what (E) says, so it's correct.

(Notice that the second sentence of the stimulus is totally superfluous! This is not uncommon.)

(A) is incorrect because we don't know that the only two possible choices are mediation and litigation. Maybe you can solve your conflicts in other ways, or maybe you choose not to solve them.

(B) is the negated version of our valid inference.

(C) is unsupported because there's no connection between ideology and certainty of correctness.

(D) reverses some of the logic in the stimulus. We know that litigation is okay only if you're sure you're correct. But that doesn't mean you must purse litigation if you're sure you're correct; you might still choose mediation (provided you're willing to compromise, which could certainly coexist with being sure you're correct).

In your explanation of answer choice D, you mentioned that "litigation is okay only if you're sure you're correct. But that doesn't mean you must purse litigation if you're sure you're correct...", however, the passage states that litigation SHOULD BE PURSUED only when one is sure that one's position is correct. I am confused because to me, should be pursued is more close to a must than a it is okay. Also, the same terminology (should) is used in answer choice D, which is what lead me to chose it.

Any help will be much appreciated.