PT8.S1.Q19- This country's universities

miriaml7

I diagrammed the stimulus as follows:

Premise 1: universities moral and intellectual----> /best selling books are frivolous

Premise 2: best selling books are frivolous

Conclusion: /universities moral and intellectual

With this diagram I was able to quickly eliminate answer choices A and B. However, I really struggled to eliminate C, D, and E. Nonetheless, I struggled with finding a reason to eliminate C and D.

C.) The stimulus tells us that at university bookstores the only publication that sells better than Gossip Review is TV Today. I thought that part of the stimulus allowed us to conclude that most people are purchasing TV Today or Gossip Review.

D.) The stimulus tells us that many people who attend this country's universities are failing their moral and intellectual responsibilities. I found this answer choice to be as equally attractive as E. I get that this answer choice is focused on the people who attend the university and the stimulus is placing a focus on the universities as a whole, but I think it's a logical assumption to say that the students are failing since they are a part of the university as a whole. If the university as a whole fails then so do all the other groups of people who make up the university.

Since I was able to use conditional logic for this question, should I just look for the conclusion that best matches and move on?

I would greatly appreciate someone's input in trying to figure out why C and D are wrong.

Thanks in advance!

SSBM1000

Hello,

The reason D is wrong is because it focuses on the people who attend the universities themselves. While you are correct that students are part of the universities, the stimulus is referring to universities as whole, and just because the university as whole is failing doesn't mean we can conclude which specific parts of the university, such as the students, are also failing.

As for C, the reason it's wrong is because it says that most people purchase those two publications at university bookstores, but the stimulus says those are the best selling books at most bookstores. Just because they are the best selling books at most bookstores doesn't mean most students purchase them overall. Most students probably don't purchase most of the books at the bookstore, so these publications probably aren't purchased by most students because most students don't need to purchase them for those publications to be the best selling books. Additionally, there could be a student who purchased those publications a lot of times on their own, instead of the majority of students purchasing them.

miriaml7

Thank you for this explanation!! @SSBM1000