Parallel Flaw

Comments

• Nilesh S Alum Inactive ⭐

  April 2015 3438 karma

  Well a //llel flaw is essentially a flaw question with an additional step - you have to find a twin of the EXACT same flaw pattern present in the stimulus in the answers - the answer which has a flaw that is a genetic match to the flaw in the stimulus is the correct answer...
• nicole.hopkins Inactive Sage Inactive ⭐

  April 2015 7965 karma

  Mapping it out is the only way I've been able to make progress with these guys! Beware that answer choices may contain contrapositives, so make sure to make them out as well unless you can definitely rule them out (for instance, if an AC comes to a radically different conclusion right off the bat). A lot of the time these questions have AC's that are in very different tones or that seem to be structured differently. Mapping them out is the only way to go most of the time.
  
  Perhaps a review of JY's logic lessons would firm up your skillset?
• 1 Like

  emli1000 Alum Member Inactive ⭐

  April 2015 3462 karma

  These are my least favorite, I always skip them and come back to them if I have time or during BR. Basically I map them all out. It's very time consuming so I know I need to drill a couple more problem sets but JY once said that these questions are time sinks because you have 6 arguments to map out, including the stimulus. Mainly focus on the premise and the conclusion and be on the lookout for the flaw. Also, how far along are you with the course? These questions should get easier with practice as well.
• 4 Likes

  alexroark5 Alum Member Inactive ⭐

  April 2015 edited April 2015 812 karma

  respectfully disagree with @nicole.hopkins on one point. I've found that usually you only have to map out 1 or 2 (3 if you're unlucky). The rest you can usually eliminate using shortcuts. For example, If the stimulus is conditional, eliminate any answer choices that are causal or perscriptive (thus X should do Y). If the stimulus is flawed reasoning, eliminate any answer choices that are valid arguments (and vice versa). Make sure the certainty level of the conclusions match as well ( if the stim says therefore all X's are Y's) eliminate any answer choices that say All X's are PROBABLY Y's (and vice versa) If its formal logic make sure the some's/most's/all's match (if the stim has a most- premise, most- premise and some- conclusion) then eliminate answer choices that don't match the most, most, some formula. You shouldn't have to diagram any of these shortcuts to see them.
  
  These are some of the shortcuts to use so that you don't have to map them all out. Usually only 1 or 2 even have a shot of being correct after a quick initial glance over.
  
  DO NOT start diagramming right away, superficially run through each answer choice first and eliminate as many as you can with the short cuts above. Then only spend time diagramming the ones that even have a shot.
• bstew2002 Alum Member

  April 2015 269 karma

  I recommend skipping them and saving them for last because they are major time sinks if you attempt them thoroughly. But just like any "argument" question, isolate the components, map with lawgic to identify the flaw and assumptions, and pick the answer that mirrors the flaw. Traps are other flawed arguments with a different type of flaw. If you get down to two or three "probable" answer choices, separate them based on severity of modifiers, i.e. "some" vs. "most" or "sometime" vs. "always." However, matching the type of flaw is more important than matching the modifiers, all other things being equal.
• 1 Like

  alexroark5 Alum Member Inactive ⭐

  April 2015 edited April 2015 812 karma

  @bstew2002 if the modifiers don't match, then the flaw doesn't match.
  
  Also, I wouldn't immediately skip all parallel reasoning questions. A lot of the time these go faster than other questions because the argument structures are so simple. Some are as simple as the contrapositive of A-->B.
  
  Here is a great example of using shortcuts on a more challenging parallel flaw question. DO NOT CONTINUE READING IF YOU DO NOT WANT TO SPOIL PT 48!!!!
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  The stimulus conclusion is basically "this entity X cannot be explained by this other entity Y"
  
  only the conclusions of answer choices A and E match this form.
  
  Answer choice B just says "entity X cannot be explained"
  Answer choice C just says "entity X 'has nothing to do with' entity Y" (having nothing to do with something is different than not being able to be explained by something)
  Answer choice D just says "none of the explanations for entity X is likely to be correct" (notice how not only does the form not match but the level of certainty doesn't match either due to the word "likely"
  
  So really you only need to spend time on A and E which are both close because they both have conclusions that say something cannot be explained by something else, A just gets the two something's in the wrong order.
• nicole.hopkins Inactive Sage Inactive ⭐

  April 2015 7965 karma

  @arabprodigy30
  Sorry, my response was unclear as @alexroark5 pointed out. Of course you should eliminate obvious mismatches first before confirming (or eliminating a remaining contender); would never recommend mapping out every answer choice and can't even imagine doing so except perhaps on the most bizarre or most difficult of these question types. You can consider that as the required assumption for my flawed response that's what happens when I have just gotten home following a rather harrowing commute. My comments apply only to the final comparison of contenders against the stimulus.
• 1 Like

  bobalicious Member Sage

  April 2015 edited April 2015 127 karma

  Initially I'd skip these - time sink - but later on in my studies I started "see the shapes" in my head. I actually think that a good number of the Parallel Flaw questions especially the ones that use Lawgic are fairly straight forward meaning they're often Common Invalid Argument forms.
  
  One thing that helped a lot was BR and painstakingly translating into Lawgic or mapping out every single answer choice.
  
  [Edit]
  Lesson citation:
  http://7sage.com/lesson/7-common-invalid-argument-forms/
• arabprodigy30 Alum Member

  April 2015 243 karma

  Thank you all for your input! I agree with @alexroark5 it is best to not map each question out. I realized how much time I am wasting when it comes to these kinds of questions.
  
  
  Another question
  
  Principle
  
  JY had few brief short videos on these. So I feel like I still do not have a better grasp . He did mention something like
  
  
  ex 1:
  
  A
  
  A---> B
  ---------------------
  
  B
  
  
  ex 2:
  
  Not B
  
  A--->B
  ---------------
  
  Not A
  
  
  He said one tactic would be to look for conclusion that satisfies the necessary condition OR look for conclusion that deny sufficient .
  
  So when it comes down to answer choices, (A, B, C, D etc..)
  Are we suppose to see if the conclusion satisfies the stimulus necessary condition ??