Q8 - The kind of thoughts that keep

[WaltGrace1983]

This is a parallel reasoning question that refers to the following argument:

Kind of thoughts that keep a person from falling asleep arise in either half of the brain
+
Left half occupied with counting
+
Right half occupied with imagining sheep
→
Counting sheep enables one to fall asleep

Let's just quickly go over the argument again, as we did in question #7. So we have these thoughts that keep us awake. These thoughts can come only from one or two possible places: the left or right side of the brain. The argument offers a solution, it claims, by occupying both sides. The logical structure of the argument, therefore, looks a bit like the following:

Thoughts that keep a person falling asleep → (left side) or (right side)

The argument then takes the contrapositive...

~(left side) AND ~(right side)

To conclude...

~Thoughts that keep a person from falling asleep

This argument structure will help us with understanding the answer choices. We need something that discusses blocking the only two possible avenues of a bad thing in order to stop the bad thing from happening.

(A) This uses the word "should" which is a dead giveaway that this is a wrong answer. The argument never says that we SHOULD do something but rather that doing something will elicit a positive result. Also, the argument is not comparing one type of thing to another.

(B) This looks really good! Let's look at the structure:

(Cats damage furniture) → Claws or Teeth
~Claws & ~Teeth → ~(Cats damage furniture)

So you can see that it gives us only two possible avenues for a particular phenomenon (like the argument does). Then it goes on to say that these two avenues are blocked out (like the argument does). It then concludes that the phenomenon will not result. Perfect! Let's look at the others to make sure!

(C) We are not "choosing" something in the original argument and we are definitely not "choosing either one." Like (A), (C) gives us two possible things to choose but the original argument never deals with anything like that! The original argument gives us two possible explanations or avenues for a phenomenon to arise and then blocks them both out.

(D) In the original argument, we are not trying to separate anything. If anything, we are more interesting in having two parts (the left and right parts of the brain) occupy the whole. It is hard to see how (D) really fits into the original argument's mold at all.

(E) The original argument does not have this logical structure at all. (E) seems to say something like...

Island → Harbor 1 v Harbor 2
~Harbor 1
Island → Harbor 2

Hope that helps!

[weid247]

I find a better way to deal with such a parallel question.

Thoughts from left and right half brain result sleepless. Sheep accounting remove the cause of sleepless, sheep accounting result a situation remove the sleepless effect.

Only B is parallel, cat claws and teeth result damage of furniture. Toy remove the cause (the claws and teeth), then toy remove the effect of cause, damage of the furniture.

[Emmeline Ndongue]

The stimulus is a flawed argument in that if offers a solution that itself might not be one, i.e. what if counting sheeps actually make you hard to fall asleep? It's like telling you sth removes a cause of the problem and will just solve it. This is addressed in Question 7.

I thought the argument's wrong in providing a solution that may well not be one. Answer choice D: the map providing 2 solutions for the shortest route, but then in no way can we know if these 2 are the only routes or the shortest routes, there might be other routes not provided on the map will do it.

That's why I chose D. I know if you look into the structure of the argument (a problem with 2 causes, and eliminating both cause by sth would qualify as a solution), you'd say that B is the best answer. I'd really argue that if this was a "parallel flaw" question, D could be a contender though