Q12 - Suppose I have promised to keep

[dan]

12. (A)
Question Type: Application
The original argument begins by setting up a mutually exclusive relationship between two things. In other words, it describes two goals (keeping a confidence and answering truthfully) that cannot both be achieved simultaneously. It uses this mutual exclusivity to conclude that one cannot expect to achieve both goals. We want to find an answer that sets up the same logical structure: introduction of a mutually exclusive relationship, conclusion that the two parts of the relationship cannot be achieved simultaneously. Answer (A) is the only one of the five choices that does this. One way to differentiate the choices is to compare the conclusions for each: which one concludes that two parts cannot be achieved simultaneously?

(B) fails to explicitly set up two mutually exclusive parts.
(C) fails to conclude that two parts cannot be achieved simultaneously.
(D) fails to set up two mutually exclusive parts.
(E) is tempting. It concludes that one path must be taken because the other path is impossible to take. However, it does not explicitly conclude that the two paths cannot be achieved simultaneously.


#officialexplanation

[stackoutawinner]

I think this is one of the hardest questions on this entire exam. I found it time intensive and challenging.

I'd love to read how you approach/tackle this problem.

How I attempted to tackle the problem was to decode the stem and then go one by one and decode the argument of each answer choice. I'm looking for a better mousetrap, or at least a great explanation of this problem.

Thanks!

[stackoutawinner]

Since there was no takers, I'll explain what I've come up with on this so far

The question asks for similar reasoning.

A short cut (at least on this question) is to evaluate and compare the conclusions.

The stimulus concludes:
One cannot do both X and Y.

Answer choice A says that both X and Y cannot be true (of course they mix up the order of the sentence to disguise this)

Answer choice B says X must do Y.

Answer choice C says if we do X or Y we risk Z

Answer choice D says either no X or no Y

Answer choice E says we have to keep Y because we cannot do X

So in looking at the conclusions, you can compare them quickly even if you don't sit there and digest the entire structure of all six arguments. I'm not really sure if this pattern would hold true for all questions of this type, but certainly found it helpful for THIS particular question.

[ManhattanPrepLSAT2]

Sorry I didn't see this question earlier --

I'll try my best to address it now.

This is a "match the reasoning," question, which means that your priority, during your first read, should be to understand the author's argument, rather than to form your own opinion or to try to see its gaps.

If you can, try to understand the argument in a structural sense. In this case, the author makes a point about two things (the keeping of conflicting promises) that cannot happen at once - and concludes that we can't be expected, therefore, to fulfill both obligations.

In a general sense, we're looking for an answer choice that discusses two things, that, because they compromise one another, cannot occur together.

Let's see what we can eliminate in the first round:

(A) talks about two things that cannot happen at once.
(B) talks about how two things must, in some ways, be related. This is not the same structure, and we can eliminate it.
(C) is attractive because it talks about two things that compromise one another. Let's keep it.
(D) has a very different structure from the original argument. It doesn't present two things in contrast, but rather gives us a series of conditional statements. We can eliminate it.
(E) includes elements that go far beyond the structure of the original argument. We can quickly eliminate it.

That leaves us with (A) and (C).

(A) has many components that match up well with the original argument, and reaches a very similar conclusion.

On closer inspection, (C) is more reliant on uncertain information (might) than the original argument, and the conclusion reached in (C) is not as similar to the original argument as the conclusion in (A) was.
Therefore, you can pick (A) confidently and move on.

This is a tough problem, no doubt about it, and there is no magic way to solve it. However, hopefully this will help you get a sense of what parts of the process are most important.

Let me know if this helps!

[wj097]

I get why (A) is the right answer. But just for the sake of knowing the right conditional logic, my question is about a part in the answer choice (E).

The second sentence of (E) is "But both new employees and additional overtime would dramatically increase our labor costs."

How do I covert this into conditional logic form?

Because of the word "and", it first seemed to be it had to be written as NE + AO -> LC.

But thinking what the sentence really means, it doesn't feel like we need both NE and AO to lead to LC. Instead, doesn't mean either NE or AO will lead to LC? In this sense, NE "or" AO -> LC feels more right. because it could be separated into NE->LC or NE->AO, and this perfectly feels right.

What do you guys think?

Thank you.

[christine.defenbaugh]

I like the way you're thinking, wj097!

You absolutely cannot rely on the existence of the word 'and' in a sentence to determine what the proper conditional notation is. Unfortunately, the English language is textured, and we use certain common words in a variety of ways, depending on variations in grammatical structures, etc. This means that the same word can mean wildly different things in different contexts.

My best advice is to never forget to read for apparent meaning. You're training yourself not to make unwarranted assumptions from the text, but you've still got to read each sentence in the way that language is actually used. Take a look at the following sentences.

Both ginger and garlic give me a headache.

If both John and Jane come to the party, there will be drama.

In the first example, "both....and" is used to indicate that either of the two items in question will trigger the result, so this must be diagrammed as "If ginger or garlic --> headache".

The second example, however, uses "both...and" to indicate that the combination of the two things will cause drama, but not necessarily each item independently. This would need to be diagrammed as "If Jane AND John --> drama".

Excellent work noting that despite the grammatical use of "and", this sentence logically diagrams with an "or"!