Q19 - The Volunteers for Literacy Program

[cyruswhittaker]

For this parallel reasoning question, I narrowed down the answer choices to A or E by POE. I chose E, however, because I thought that there was a relationship formed between the two premises, which I noticed in E but not in A.

Looking over the question again, I'm trying to figure out why A is actually correct, and I'm thinking that it is because the two pieces of evidence used represent two explicit differences, which is done in the argument but not in choice E.

Is this correct? Or is there something else that makes A the correct answer?

Thanks!

[ManhattanPrepLSAT2]

Another great question from you --

And another great evaluation -- I think your reasoning is correct --

Here's how I see the skeleton of the original argument:

Better to pick D than V
D is better than V at one thing
D doesn't have the problems V has with another thing

(A) matches that structure.

The structure of (E) is more like:
Better to pick T than B
B causes a problem

I agree that (E) is tempting, especially because the first part of (E) (to "exchange") matches up better with the argument than the first part of (A).

Hope that helps!

[magnusgan]

I think the crux of the question is that there are two distinct, completely unrelated supports for the decision. Lots of the answer choices presents related arguments; these arguments are often related by the second reason being a logical extension of the first.

E.g. Want cheapest travel SO travel by bus (which is the cheapest option). It is impossible to divorce the two concepts of cheapest travel and bus from each other; you can't have cheapest travel and not take the bus.

The relationship in the stimulus does not possess this quality. Makes no sense when we do the "SO" test.
i.e. Skill in financial support SO does not alienate volunteers (huh?)

The test allows us to see that we can have financial support without alienating volunteers or vice versa. So these are independent.

(B), two related supports: want cheapest travel SO take bus. Can't have cheapest travel without bus.
(C), two related supports: Friday night AND Friday night road traffic sucks. Can't have Friday night without shitty traffic.
(D), two related supports: must pay car parking fees AND car parking fees higher than train ticket. Can't have car parking without paying more.
(E), two related supports: must be earliest AND bus will not make him earliest. Can't be earliest if he takes the bus.

(A), two unrelated supports: proximity to home SO proximity to school (huh?)

What if we consider (A) as two related supports? Cant have proximity to home without proximity to school (huh?)

We can in fact have proximity to school without proximity to home or vice versa. Therefore this parallels the stimulus.