Parallel Reasoning Tips?

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• harrismegan Member

  December 2014 2074 karma

  Honestly I found that these gave me trouble because I thought way too much about them. I usually solve them only if I have time "left" over, and I solve them in 1 of 2 ways.
  
  1. I just read the stimulus slowly and get a grasp of what it's saying.
  I then quickly move to the answers and read them. Sometimes just having an idea of what's going on, and then seeing an answer choice that reflects that idea, is easy and quick. Most of the time they can be solved this way.
  
  2. Mapping out the stimulus and then mapping out each answer choice. This takes more time, but if I'm stumped and the first method doesn't work, I use this one.
• 1 Like

  harrismegan Member

  December 2014 2074 karma

  OK For example. I just went and found these in prep test 57.
  
  Section 2 Question 8.
  "A psychiatrist argued that there is no such thing as a multiple personality disorder on the grounds that in all her years of clinic practice, she had never encountered one case of this type".
  I would solve this one using the first method. Why? Because it's kinda easy to get a sense of what's going on. The argument is saying there is no such thing as something (lets say X) because you've never come across it/seen it.
  
  This is compared to Section 3 Question 20.
  
  "Every moral action is the keeping of an agreement, and keeping an agreement is nothing more than an act of securing mutual benefit. Clearly, however, not all instances of agreement keeping are moral actions. Therefore, some acts of securing mutual benefit are not moral actions".
  
  This one I would map out.
  MA --> KOAA --> NMASMB , ect.
  
  
  
  
• 5 Likes

  alexroark5 Alum Member Inactive ⭐

  December 2014 812 karma

  Just a couple of thoughts on this. If i run into a parallel reasoning question before question 15 chances are i'll try to solve it right then. If it run into one past question 15 then there is a greater chance that it is a time sink and i'll skip it and come back to it at the end.
  
  If it is obvious from the stimulus of the question that it is heavy on conditional logic i'll map it out on paper if it isn't a simple argument form that i can keep in my head. I would go through and scan each answer choice quickly and eliminate the ones that are easy to see are incorrect. Usually there are only two (three if you're unlucky) that i need to map out in depth.
  
  If its a formal logic question i'll go through an eliminate quickly based off of the questions that don't match the all, some, most, etc in the conclusion or premises and then only map out the ones that have a chance of being right.
  
  Other parallel question don't involve conditional logic or formal logic and with these you can usually just see the reasoning or the flaw easily without having to map it out, I find these to go by a lot quicker.
  
  Hope that helps some.