Questions on Parallel (Flaw)

[WaltGrace1983]

I've been drilling all of the Parallel Flaw questions from 1-38 and I am almost done. However, I do have some questions about what is going on in some of these stimuli/answer choices. If anyone has some insight, I'd appreciate it!

I apologize if it looks like I am trying to just come up with ways to auto-eliminate answers (aka, tricks that are never sufficient). In reality, I am just trying to understand the logic behind what is going on in some of these.

(1) How important is conditional language when comparing the stimulus to the answer choices? I have seen some - not many - correct answers that will infuse conditional language into the conclusion or premises when the original argument either had none or language drastically different in form. 17.2.16 "In yesterday's council election" comes to mind. The correct answer, (B), gives us "if Sara and Robert are both right, it must be that most children like pies that contain blueberries." To me, this is a small but perhaps significant difference and I want to know of some of your gut reactions on it - should I be incredibly suspicious of an answer's premises or conclusion that injects some conditional language in there when there wasn't any?

(2) When an original argument involves no prescriptive words (such as "should"), will an answer choice ever involve such language? It doesn't seem to be so but perhaps I simply have not come across any or perhaps I am oversimplifying the issue.

(3) Do the "all," "some," and/or "most" statements have to line up between the original argument and the answer choice? I've seen many stimuli such as 2.2.20 "All savings accounts..." in which there are a lot of quantifying statements. In this argument, there is one "all" statement and two "some" statements. In order for an answer to be correct, does the right answer choice have to have the same amount and type of such quantifying statements. In order to have parallel logic, it would seem so!

(3b) When such quantifying statements are a necessary part of the core, are they absolutely crucial for the right answer?

(4) On the same token, what about words that discuss probability? If the original argument concludes something like "Therefore, it is likely that X will happen," can the parallel argument ever conclude something like "X will happen" and vice versa?

Would the answers to these questions that I was originally thinking of for parallel flaw also apply to parallel in general? It seems so as these questions are much less having to do with the FLAWS as they are with parallel STRUCTURE.

Thanks everyone!

[jgutella]

For parallel flaw questions, you don't need to be as meticulous with matching up quantifiers/language. The more important part is that you are matching up the flaw itself. Indeed, often times the language between the correct choice and the original statement will be purposefully different, especially for the difficult questions, to lure you into making the mistake of matching up language/structure instead of flaw.

Example: 45.1.11- the original statement uses "will rise" and "can be expected", whereas the correct answer choice uses "has recently risen" and "must have".

With parallel reasoning questions, however, you definitely want to spend time matching up the conclusions with language. But, again, the replication of a flaw is generally irrespective of language cues. The wrong answers hinge on misrepresentations of the flaw itself, or different flaws.

HTH.

[chike_eze]

In general, with parallel flaws (as pointed out above) you want to see if you can spot the flaw in the stimuli. If you can, then it makes it much easier to try to spot that same flaw in the answer options.

Sometimes it is not so clear what the flaw is or you just miss it. In this case you want to make sure you get the structure of the flawed argument and then try to match it to the right answer option. For this, I'm not sure being so meticulous about specific words is the best strategy. It may work for some questions but you'll get burned on others. I think you are better served looking at the structure of the flawed argument at a higher level.

You could also eliminate options that contain logical arguments. i.e., if you are trying to match flawed reasoning, then the right answer will also be flawed -- so any properly reasoned option should be eliminated.