Q13 - Carl's Coffee Emporium stocks only

[skapur777]

I picked D, which is correct but not sure exactly how to describe this argument.

My understanding was:

Someone offers two choices.
The person in question can only pick between these two choices.
He couldn't have picked one due to certain reasons, so he must have picked the other.

That's how I describe the stimulus.

D says:
Werdix offers two choices.
Ardo can only pick between these two choices (since he wants to work at Werdix)
He couldn't have picked one of them due to certain reasons, so he has to pick the other one.

Did I get lucky with this question or am I on the right track here?

[ManhattanPrepLSAT1]

You have it right! Great work.

The stimulus says that it has to be French Roast or Mocha Java. It can't be French Roast, so it has to be Mocha Java.

Answer choice (D) says that it has to be a job in sales or a job in research. It can't be a job in sales, so it must be a job in research.

Let's take a look at the incorrect answers though:

(A) presents two options, but doesn't preclude one of them as the stimulus does.
(B) presents two options and then rules out both of them!
(C) presents two options, rules out one of them, and then fails to consider that the other option is still available.
(E) doesn't present two options.

Hope that helps. Great workskapur777!

[sukim764]

What threw me off in answer choice D was the added condition, "when another job is available," whereas in the original stimulus, the other choice is eliminated in a much more absolute manner, "was far too smooth and mellow to have been French Roast." I was hesitant to choose this answer because of this difference. Please feel free to chime in if I'm overlooking something, or if my analysis is incorrect.

[Mab6q]

I'm having a hard time eliminating C.

Vacation -- > two week june or three week October

Trail she planned to hike --> three weeks + ~october

so vacation --> ~planned.

planned leads us to two weeks june and october, which negates vacation.

Please tell me how this doesn't match the stimulus.

[christine.defenbaugh]

Thanks for posting, Mab6q!

I love that you're mapping out the shape of the argument to see the match! One thing to consider is that it's not always optimal to force every statement into a conditional type structure. In our original argument, one of the most striking structural elements is the 'only two options' bit. If we focus on that, we could map out the essential structure of the original as:

There are only two options.
One option is impossible.
Therefore, it must be the other one.

For the original argument, these two options are French Roast and Mocha Java. French Roast is then eliminated. Therefore, it had to be Mocha Java. For (D), the two options are sales and research. Arno won't take the sales job. Therefore, he'll take the research job.

For (C), we start with two options: July-2-wk or October-3-wk. The planned trail won't just kill one of the options, it will kill both!! Rose could do something other than the planned trail, but then both options would still be on the table. This is fundamentally different from killing off ONE option!

If it helps to diagram it, this is how I would do it:

ORIGINAL
Carl's --> FR or MJ
Yusef dinner --> ~FR
Yusef dinner AND Carl's --> MJ

ANSWER (D)
Werdix job --> sales or research
Arno --> ~sales
Arno AND Werdix job --> research

WRONG ANSWER (C)
Vacation --> July-2-wk or October-3-wk
Planned trail --> 3-wk AND ~October
Vacation --> ~planned trail

(C) only matches the first premise (with the two options) - it fails to match the other pieces!

Does this help clear things up a bit?