Q15 - If Agnes's research proposal

[noah]

#1. If A research proposal approved --> 4th floor cleaned out

#2. If Immanuel's proposal approved --> continue to work on 2nd floor
(this statement has no bearing on the conclusion)

#3. Only those supported by the Director are approved.

Since, director supports both proposals, CONCLUSION: 4th floor will have to be cleaned out.

Note conditional statement #1 is only triggered when a research proposal is APPROVED. The author has made the classic flaw of reversing necessary-sufficient without negating.

If you are not inclined to use formal logic you can simply look at it as this: Just because the director supports a proposal doesn't mean it will be approved. The stimulus doesn't state "All proposals supported by the Director are approved", we only know that "only those approved are supported by the Director". Those the reversal of conditions?

(B) is the correct response.

Great write-up! I'd say it a bit differently, but would be getting at the same thing:

The conclusion is that the 4th floor lab must be cleaned out. Why? Because the director supports both proposals + Agnes's proposal requires cleaning out the 4th floor lab.

It looks good until you realize that Agnes only has the director's support. Does that support mean the proposal is accepted (e.g., does some approving board always listen to the director)? (B) points out this issue.

To add some wrong-answer analysis:

(A) is a comparison trap. We're not comparing the labs in any way.

(C) is tempting if you mistakenly thought the conclusion requires some working-out of the two proposals.

(D) is irrelevant since the conclusion hinges only on Agnes's proposal.

(E) is perhaps tempting--maybe she'll get some other lab?--but we were told that Agnes's proposal requires the fourth-floor lab. Who cares if it turns out some other lab would be adequate? Don't doubt the premise!


#officialexplanation

[samuelfbaron]

#1. If A research proposal approved --> 4th floor cleaned out

#2. If Immanuel's proposal approved --> continue to work on 2nd floor
(this statement has no bearing on the conclusion)

#3. Only those supported by the Director are approved.

Since, director supports both proposals, CONCLUSION: 4th floor will have to be cleaned out.

Note conditional statement #1 is only triggered when a research proposal is APPROVED. The author has made the classic flaw of reversing necessary-sufficient without negating.

If you are not inclined to use formal logic you can simply look at it as this: Just because the director supports a proposal doesn't mean it will be approved. The stimulus doesn't state "All proposals supported by the Director are approved", we only know that "only those approved are supported by the Director". Those the reversal of conditions?

(B) is the correct response.

[samiraa180]

[#3. Only those supported by the Director are approved. ]

Can I translate this into an If/ Then?

This is what I have:

Agnes RP Approved---> 4th floor cleaned out

Immanuel RP Approved--> Continue to work in 2nd floor

If approved---> Director supports

Director supports both proposals--->4th floor cleaned out

I picked A for a reason I can't seem to think of now, but B seem problematic because mentioning a board of directors seems out of scope. If this were a weaken question, then I would agree we raise this issue, but this is a flaw.

[JasonS552]

I don't understand how B is correct.

So if "only those proposals the director supports will be approved" and "the director will supports both approvals" how could answer choice B be correct?

Is it because of the word "will" ?????

Since the director has not approved it yet, there is still a possibility that the director can reject the proposal?

[ohthatpatrick]

Consider this sentence:
"Only those candidates chosen to represent the Democratic or Republican parties will win a Presidential election"

That sentence, in other words, is saying that 3rd party candidates will not win a Presidential election.

In conditional logic terms,
"If not chosen to represent Dem or Rep party, then won't win"

Does that mean that "every candidate who IS chosen to represent the Dem or Rep party WILL win an election"?

Of course not.

It's the same logic and syntax as the 2nd to last sentence of Q15:
"only proposals supported by the director will be approved"

If you're not supported by the director, you will not be approved.

But does that mean that "if you ARE supported by the director, you WILL be approved?"

Of course not.

We have no information about how these proposals get approved, other than the one fact that any proposal that isn't supported by the director would be dead on arrival.

If you're getting this question wrong or struggling to understand it correctly, you should invest some time in mastering the normal conditional logic words.

Essentially, you memorize the common conditional logic words that are attached to Left Side ideas, the ones attached to Right Side ideas, and the ones for which we do the "If-Not" process (Left Side, but negated)

LEFT: if, when, whenever, all, each, any, no, the only

RIGHT: only, only if, requires, must, ensures, guarantees, always leads to

IF-NOT: unless, without, until


When you see a Flaw paragraph using conditional logic (we get 2 "ifs" and 1 "only"), it's almost guaranteed that the author will mess up the conditional logic and read something backwards.

'Only those proposals the director supports will be approved'?

We see 'only' and put 'proposals the director supports' on the right side.
_______ ---> director supports

We put the other idea on the left side
approved --> director supports

contrapositive
director NOT support --> NOT approved

When the author says that "the director will support both proposals", does that rule tell us anything?

Nope.

There's no rule that says
director supports ---> ________

The fact that the director supports a proposal doesn't tell us in any way whether the proposal will be approved.

Meanwhile, if we knew the director did NOT support a proposal, that would tell us definitively that the proposal will not be approved.

Hope this helps.