I'm having trouble with this one.
So I diagrammed John's stments:
1) GW-->~D
D-->~GW
2) GW-->ET
~ET-->~GW
Assumption: ~D-->ET
[Key: GW=great writer, D=diversity in subj matter, ET=explore theme]
A) ~D-->GW
B) ~ET-->GW
C) ET-->GW
D) D-->~GW
E) didn't even bother
Does "even if" signal a suff condition? If you are supposed to represent "exclusion" instead of just "being" a GW, then how would one do that?
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Re: Q4 - John's statements commit him
Nice dissection and good questions.
It seems like you were thinking of this question stem as "Sufficient Assumption", because you predicted the missing link we would need.
However, John's statements are not an argument.
On this test, it's important to know the difference between argument/reasoning (which means there's a Conc and Evid on which it's based) vs. statements/information/passage (which means there is no Conc, no logic to evaluate, just "facts").
Any question from the Assumption Family will be dealing with arguments/reasoning. Questions such as Inference just deal with "facts".
I interpret this question stem to be more like Inference. Inference asks, "based on the paragraph you read, which of these answers must be true?"
That's more or less our task here. "Based on John's statements, which of these answers must he believe?"
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The next big thing to caution you against is converting that 1st idea into a conditional claim.
Saying "a great writer does not need diversity in subject matter" is not a conditional claim.
You symbolized that as
GW --> ~D
That means "if you are a great writer, you do NOT have diversity in subject matter."
Do you see the difference between what John actually said and what that conditional symbolization would mean? John is allowing for the fact that some great writers will have D, while others might not have D. Turning it into a rule means that every great writer does not have D.
So "need not" is not conditional, even though it reminds us of other conditional type wording.
By contrast, the 2nd one you had correctly:
GW --> ET
~ET --> ~GW
Because that's the only conditional rule present in John's statements, I anticipated that the answers would be testing us on our application of that rule (like in a Principle Example question).
A correct answer could either say:
X is a great writer. Thus, X can ET.
or, testing the contrapositive (more likely)
X cannot ET. Thus, X is not a great writer.
"Even if" is not a sufficient condition.
I could say "You can be President of the U.S. even if you're a terrible bowler." There's no way to make a conditional statement out of that. "Even if" is just like "need not", in the sense that you're allowing for Presidents to be good bowlers or terrible bowlers. Those phrases really just mean that a certain criterion is IRRELEVANT to whether or not someone deserves to be called X.
A) seems to go along with John's statements, that D is irrelevant to whether or not someone is called GW.
B) contradicts John. ~ET --> ~GW, according to him.
C) reverses John's logic. He said GW-->ET, and this goes backwards.
D) contradicts John. He said that D is irrelevant to whether we deem someone a GW.
E) goes beyond John's scope. He never mentions distinctive style.
The answers here surprised me, because I fully expected them to test the conditional rule that John provided. Instead, they tested his first thought, that D is not a valid criterion for GW.
Most of your confusion was probably because you made that first thought into a conditional rule, and you also were making (A) and (B) into conditional rules.
Hopefully you're cool with why "need not" and "even if" are not conditional ideas, they're basically telling us that something is an irrelevant criterion.
If you need any elaboration, please ask.
It seems like you were thinking of this question stem as "Sufficient Assumption", because you predicted the missing link we would need.
However, John's statements are not an argument.
On this test, it's important to know the difference between argument/reasoning (which means there's a Conc and Evid on which it's based) vs. statements/information/passage (which means there is no Conc, no logic to evaluate, just "facts").
Any question from the Assumption Family will be dealing with arguments/reasoning. Questions such as Inference just deal with "facts".
I interpret this question stem to be more like Inference. Inference asks, "based on the paragraph you read, which of these answers must be true?"
That's more or less our task here. "Based on John's statements, which of these answers must he believe?"
----
The next big thing to caution you against is converting that 1st idea into a conditional claim.
Saying "a great writer does not need diversity in subject matter" is not a conditional claim.
You symbolized that as
GW --> ~D
That means "if you are a great writer, you do NOT have diversity in subject matter."
Do you see the difference between what John actually said and what that conditional symbolization would mean? John is allowing for the fact that some great writers will have D, while others might not have D. Turning it into a rule means that every great writer does not have D.
So "need not" is not conditional, even though it reminds us of other conditional type wording.
By contrast, the 2nd one you had correctly:
GW --> ET
~ET --> ~GW
Because that's the only conditional rule present in John's statements, I anticipated that the answers would be testing us on our application of that rule (like in a Principle Example question).
A correct answer could either say:
X is a great writer. Thus, X can ET.
or, testing the contrapositive (more likely)
X cannot ET. Thus, X is not a great writer.
"Even if" is not a sufficient condition.
I could say "You can be President of the U.S. even if you're a terrible bowler." There's no way to make a conditional statement out of that. "Even if" is just like "need not", in the sense that you're allowing for Presidents to be good bowlers or terrible bowlers. Those phrases really just mean that a certain criterion is IRRELEVANT to whether or not someone deserves to be called X.
A) seems to go along with John's statements, that D is irrelevant to whether or not someone is called GW.
B) contradicts John. ~ET --> ~GW, according to him.
C) reverses John's logic. He said GW-->ET, and this goes backwards.
D) contradicts John. He said that D is irrelevant to whether we deem someone a GW.
E) goes beyond John's scope. He never mentions distinctive style.
The answers here surprised me, because I fully expected them to test the conditional rule that John provided. Instead, they tested his first thought, that D is not a valid criterion for GW.
Most of your confusion was probably because you made that first thought into a conditional rule, and you also were making (A) and (B) into conditional rules.
Hopefully you're cool with why "need not" and "even if" are not conditional ideas, they're basically telling us that something is an irrelevant criterion.
If you need any elaboration, please ask.
2 posts Page 1 of 1