Q16 - Retailers that excel in neither

[sumukh09]

This is a parallel reasoning question; we have to find an answer choice that matches the logical structure of the stimulus. For these questions we have to essentially "match" the logic of the stimulus with that of the answer choice and pay close attention to modifiers that may affect the reasoning.

The stim is structured as follows:

If you don't excel in A and B then it's likely that you won't be C. Yet many C excel in either A or B and not necessarily both. Therefore, you don't need to excel in both A and B to be C.

A) matches the logic in the stim

It says that if you don't excel in A and B then it's likely you won't be C [It doesn't directly say this, but you can make the assumption that if you're "average" in something then that means you don't excel in it]. Yet, there have been C who have excelled in either A or B but not both, so you don't need A and B to be C. We have a match!

B) This is off for many reasons. Premises are not logically equivalent to that of the stimulus. We can eliminate this one confidently.

C) Take a look at the conclusion. Does it conclude that you can do C with only excelling in either A or B? Nope. It says the opposite -- if you excel at something then you will win. This is too strong and doesn't match the conclusion of the stimulus which says that you DON'T need to excel in both things to get C.

D) Apples that are the "best" need not be... we have a shift from being suitable to baking to being the best; this shift isn't warranted given there was no such shift in the stimulus.

E) Not even close!

[bbirdwell]

Good write-up! Thanks for contributing a solution.

Notice on (E) the all-too-common red-flag phrasing "purposes other than..."

[gplaya123]

Just out of a curiosity,
why is that "purposes other than..." is considered as a red flag?

I eliminated E based on this reason:
the stimulus deals with attributes (like A, like average speed and endurance) yet E deals with classification....

[ttunden]

The problem I encountered on #16 was that A did not match up exactly with the stimulus, thus I eliminated it. I picked D but in blind review I can understand why D is wrong.

D is wrong because it has a scope shift in the answer choice from unsuitable for baking to suitable for eating. The stimulus never does this, therefore D is wrong.

A is really close and I liked it at first but crossed it off when doing this timed because it didn't match up exactly with the stimulus. I crossed it off because it did not have "excelled in just one area and meet standards for other." I didn't see this in A so I moved on to the rest of the ACs.

How come A is right even though it was missing that component? I can see how it matches with the other parts of the stimulus but since it missed the component I specified early, I crossed A off.

Thanks

[JosephV]

The problem I encountered on #16 was that A did not match up exactly with the stimulus, thus I eliminated it. I picked D but in blind review I can understand why D is wrong.

D is wrong because it has a scope shift in the answer choice from unsuitable for baking to suitable for eating. The stimulus never does this, therefore D is wrong.

A is really close and I liked it at first but crossed it off when doing this timed because it didn't match up exactly with the stimulus. I crossed it off because it did not have "excelled in just one area and meet standards for other." I didn't see this in A so I moved on to the rest of the ACs.

How come A is right even though it was missing that component? I can see how it matches with the other parts of the stimulus but since it missed the component I specified early, I crossed A off.

Thanks

I think you are right. I do not see how the omission of the idea of "meet competitors' standards" could be reconciled - the credited answer choice (A) is simply missing this component.

However, I believe that the answer to your question lies in the question stem, which in part reads: "is most parallel." That is, if an answer choice is three-quarters of the way parallel to the stimulus, whereas all other answer choices only go up to at most one half in similarity, then the three-quarter answer choice is the correct one.

Hope this helps.