Q4 - An overwhelming number of industry's chief executive of

[erikwoodward10]

Can someone help me out with an explanation as to why D is incorrect? Here is how I broke down the problem:

P: An overwhelming number of industry’s chief executive officers who earn over 250000 annually attended prestigious business schools.
C: therefore, Greta Harris, who attended a prestigious business school, must be a chief executive officer who earns over 250000.

Flaw: Premise states that A→B. Conclusion states that given B, thus A.

Answer choice D states that quite a few opera singers carry nails (A) to give them good luck (B), thus A→B. Therefore George, an opera singer (A), must owe his luck to the nail (B). Is this incorrect because it is a repeat form, where as the stimulus contains a mistaken reversal?

Also, I'm having a lot of trouble with parallel reasoning questions in general. How does everyone else successfully attack them? Should I start by matching structure, method of reasoning, certainty of conclusion, etc? Thanks!

[ohthatpatrick]

Thanks for bringing this one to the Forum. Matching question ARE annoying.

For normal Match the Reasoning, try to concoct a recipe of ingredients and how they are combined.

You might go to answers looking for a recipe such as
P1: X or Y
P2: ~Y
————————
Conc: X

When it seems helpful, use a mental vocabulary that includes the TYPE and/or STRENGTH of claim.

TYPE
conditional
comparative
causal
either/or
normative (should/ought)
statement of fact

STRENGTH
certain (all / none / never / only / must, etc.)

probable (most / usually / likely / few / rarely, etc.)

possible (can / may / might / not all)


For Match the Flaw, it’s primarily about getting the same Flaw, but if more than one answer choice seems to host the original flaw, THEN we’ll get more nitty-gritty with ingredient-by-ingredient comparison.

Question Type: Match the Flaw

Lots of CEO’s making more than 250k went to a great business school.
Greta attended a great business school.
Thus, she must be a CEO making more than 250k.

Let’s put that in the abstract:

Lots of A’s are B.
X is B.
—————
Thus, X is A


(A) The conclusion is about health problems, a new idea. We need to conclude the first idea in our “Lots of A’s are B”

(B) The conclusion is a comparison between X and Y. We just want to hear that X is B, thus X is A.

(C) This doesn’t have a 2nd premise.

(D) This says
Lots of A’s (opera) are B (nail-carriers)
X is A
————
Thus, X owes C to B

So it’s wrong as soon as we see the 2nd ingredient is “X is A”, rather than “X is B”. But the inclusion of that third factor, C, (good luck) should also stick out.
One important way to practice matching problems is to take the ingredient that DOES work and work out how the rest of the answer SHOULD have sounded.

If I start with
“lots of opera singers carry a bent nail”
I need
George carries a bent nail.
Thus, George must be an opera singer.


(E) Looks good.
Lots of A (successful opera) are B (studied more than one language)
X (Eileen) is B
————————
thus, X is A.



Watch out for scrambling the order of ingredients. That usually occurs in the correct answer. The original argument went
P1
P2
Conc

Our correct answer (E) goes
P1
Conc
P2

The order of the ingredients doesn’t make any difference to the logic of the argument.