I just have one specific question. On parallel reasoning questions, if an answer choice essentially has the same logical force, # terms, and structure as the stimulus except its conclusion is the contrapositive of the previous terms, does that disqualify it as a right answer?
For instance:
Stimulus:
A --> B;
B --> C;
Thus, A --> C
Answer choice:
D --> E
E --> F
Thus, F --> D?
Hi! I was really struggling to understand this problem too, but if you sort the comments by most popular likes, R.Y. Moon does a great job explaining this.
Two concepts that helped me understand this problem: 1) the relationship between the two premises and between the conclusion, and 2) we're talking about the average price of cars.
1) "The avg price paid for new cars steadily increased in relation to average individual income." Like 7Sage says, the two pieces evidence in the premise don't really have anything intrinsically to do with each other; if we forget about the conclusion, all we're saying is "X is increasing faster in relation to Y's income."
We can even say "The amount of bananas produced is increasing faster in relation to rodeo clown hires" and unless we're given any more information about this relationship, we can't draw any conclusions about the two. It would be wrong for me to conclude that "less people want to become rodeo clowns since there are more banana peels lying around."
The trap of this question is that it's trying to fool us into thinking thinking the two things in the premise are related when they aren't. It's just telling us one thing (average new car price) is increasing faster than another thing (individual income). On that basis alone, they're concluding that individuals must be paying more in relation to their income on new cars. Just highlighting trends of these two things doesn't give us enough information to make such a strong conclusion (making the two things price and income is also a trick).
2) Once we pick up that the two phenomena in the premise are independent (I was got that wrong when I did this problem), we need to understand the average price paid for cars. We're talking about the average price paid for new cars by anyone, not just individuals. Also, an average price comes from a range of prices. It's possible that anyone one else besides individuals (companies, families, government) are buying the progressively more expensive cars while individuals are still buying the most inexpensive cars: individuals may still be spending the same amount on new cars in relation to their income as 25 years ago, while other entities are buying the more and more expensive cars that is increasing the average price paid for new cars.
This is the best I understand this problem, but PLEASE check the comments sorted by likes, there are some really great explanations that may be more enlightening than this!
This is one of the trickiest problems I've faced and the way I take it is that this is a deep lesson about the relationship between premises and what an average really means.
Thank you so much for the tip!