Self-study
Ashley: Words like "of" and "upon," unlike "pencil" and "shirt," do not refer to anything.
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WTF Kind Of Question Is This?
When a question stem doesn’t fit cleanly into any of the categories you’ve come to recognize, it’s especially important to read it closely to make sure you’re clear on its exact meaning. This stem tells us:
- We can expect two viewpoints in the stimulus – Ashley and Joshua – and Joshua will respond to Ashley.
- Joshua’s response will assume Ashley meant something she didn’t say explicitly.
- The correct answer will express the version of Ashley’s statement that exists in Joshua’s head.
So we should read Ashley’s statements without skepticism, just absorbing the information, and we should read Joshua’s response combing for gaps between his statements and Ashley’s.
The Gap
We can isolate the gap between Ashley’s statement and Joshua’s understanding by looking at where Joshua thinks they agree. Ashley provides the claim “[various words] don’t refer to anything,” and our boy Josh says “yep I agree; they’re meaningless.”
Those concepts might seem related, but they’re slightly different, and that jump from not referring to anything to being meaningless is the implication we’re looking for in the answers. Josh assumes Ashley is implying that:
English: If a word doesn’t refer to anything, it’s meaningless.
Logic: /Refer To Something → /Meaning
15.
Joshua's remarks indicate that he ███████████ ████████ █████████ ██ █████ ████
a
only words that █████ ██ █████████ ████ ███████
Treating “only” as a necessary condition indicator here yields the following translations:
English: If a word has meaning, it must refer to something.
Logic: Meaning → Refer To Something
These statements are logically equivalent to the claim we’re anticipating; they’re just phrased in the contrapositive.
b
words that are ███ ██████ ███ ███████████
Useful is a concept that never appears in Ashley’s statement.
c
words that refer ██ █████████ ███ ██████████
This is the inverse of the correct answer – both its terms are negated as compared to the correct anticipation.
(C)
English: If a word does refer to something, it’s meaningful.Logic: Refer To Something → Meaning
Correct
English: If a word doesn’t refer to anything, it’s meaningless.Logic: /Refer To Something → /Meaning
d
if a word ██ ███ ███████ ██ ██████ ██ █████████
(D) introduces the concept of usefulness, which doesn’t appear anywhere in either speaker’s claims.
Even assuming meaningless = not useful, though, Joshua introduces the thought that some words should be abandoned as his own, novel idea, not one he thinks Ashley has already mentioned.
e
all words that █████ ██ █████████ ███ ██████
Useful is a concept that never appears in Ashley’s statement.