Q24 - Journalist: Can you give

[greatwhiteshark100]

Hi, I really don't get this question, thanks!

[aileenann]

Hi there! I'll be glad to help you get a start on this question.

Firstly, going off the question stem, this is a pattern of reasoning question. So our goal will be to boil down the original argument to its bare bones, essentially content free and then do the same to each of the answer choices. Whichever one matches the original is our answer.

First, let's take a look at the argument itself.

Journalist: Can you give a A of the B you are working on?

Novelist: I assume by "A" that you mean C. However, the reason I create B is that I want to communicate something that cannot be done via C. So I am afraid I cannot give you anthing like A in a way that would tell you what I am trying to communicate.

Or more generally, the novelist responds to the author by saying, I'm afraid I can't do what I think you want me to do, because you are asking me to do something that is impossible and/or directly opposite to what I have or can do.

Do you see that pattern of reasoning? Basically, my more colloquial take on it is that the novelist declines to fulfill the journalist's request because the journalist is asking him to do the very opposite of what he is striving to do in his novel. So he says that he can't do it because he assumes the novelist means a very specific thing in doing this, whereas perhaps there might be some other definition of "summarize" that could work and that would enable the novelist to summarize his work. I only point out this second gap or flaw in the argument because if there is such a gap or flaw in your original, you want to pick an answer choice that also agrees with this.

Does this make sense so far? If so, could you perhaps try writing out an analysis of the answer choices, breaking down each one in the way I have done with the question stimulus itself?

[slimjimsquinn]

Could you flush out the argument a little bit more? Especially relate it to answer choice D)?


I'm still not understanding it. I'm confused by the introduction of C). Also, is this diagrammable? I can't internalize the logic.

[sportsfan8491]

I'd like to revive this thread and post my thoughts on this question. If one of the experts could provide their thoughts/insights on my post, it would be greatly appreciated.

The question stem asks us to parallel the "pattern of reasoning" from the novelist's argument. It is a pretty tricky argument, but I was able to understand it only after reading the argument a bit slower the second time through (because there is an important distinction that one might overlook when reading this too quickly). I believe that the novelist's argument is flawed, in a very subtle way though. Admittedly, I missed this flaw/distinction when I was reading it quickly for the first time during a timed session (hence a slower second read through was required). The flaw/distinction I'm talking about is the term/concept-mismatch that occurs between the first and second premises and this is what I tried to parallel.

So, what is the term/concept-mismatch? The novelist defines a summary as something that 'isn't a version of the novel itself'. She then presents us with a premise about 'form of a novel'. At this point, and during my second 'slower' read through, a light bulb went off in my head because I noticed that 'version of the novel itself' isn't the same thing as 'form of a novel' - this is a pretty subtle, yet major, term/concept-mismatch. Basically, my response to the novelist's (flawed) argument would be something along the lines of: "Ms/Mrs. Novelist, that's all fine and dandy, but why can't you just write a summary for me in the 'form of a novel' then? Can't it still be in the 'form of a novel', but just a shorter version of it?"

So, in summary, I saw the flaw as: The Novelist didn't exclude the possibility that a summary couldn't be composed in the form of a novel, so the Novelist's conclusion wouldn't necessarily follow from his/her evidence

(D) is correct because it contains the same term/concept-mismatch that the novelist's argument contains. More specifically, a photo that 'isn't three dimensional' might still be able to provide a 'three dimensional representation'.

So, the argument didn't exclude the possibility that a photograph taken with a traditional camera couldn't provide a representation of three-dimensional landscape, so the author's conclusion wouldn't necessarily follow from his/her evidence

(A) is wrong because it doesn't have this same term/concept-mismatch. This argument contains reversed logic.

(B) is wrong because it doesn't have this same term/concept-mismatch. This argument contains reversed logic.

(C) is wrong because it doesn't provide us with the same term/concept-mismatch. Notice that the conclusion provides a hasty generalization based on a premise about the relative advantages/disadvantages of one element over another element and the main stimulus never compared anything in the way of relative advantages/disadvantages.

(E) is wrong and I basically stopped reading it after the word 'some'. Notice that the conclusion isn't about something 'never' being the case, but it's about the function something serves (i.e. the function of banquet menus), which the main stimulus clearly didn't provide us with.

I hope this is helpful

P.S. You can validate (D) based on the conditional language as well, as it's the only one that remotely matches the stimulus. In all honestly, I only noticed this when reviewing the problem afterwards. I would recommend understanding the reasoning/logic to a problem, as opposed to using little tricks like this. But in case you're curious, here's what I mean:

Stimulus: P1 = "not", P2 = "only in", C = "cannot"
Answer (D): P2 = "not", P1 = "only a", C = "can never"

[jwms]

I didn't view the flaw/term shift as being important to recognise in this problem. The question stem asked for a parallel; not a flaw-parallel.

I was mildly aware of the term-shift, but during POE it didn't come up, so I completely forgot about it by the time I reached TCR.

[a8l367]

Did not get it

J: give me S
N: You mean S*, but it's impossible to make S* form N

D) only R* could be ok. R is not ok.

So IMHO D is not parallel but resembling in some point the question. D is the best answer but is it correct one and why?