17 is a parallel method of reasoning question most similar to the reasoning above. It's a fairly straightforward exercise in logic, but

answer choices are replete with traps.

So first, let's just get very clear on what the stimulus is saying. The first thing is as if Suarez is not the most qualified

Anderson is. So this should remind you of logic games because it's very similar to in-out games where we have a OR rule, right?

OR rule. We're talking about who is the most

qualified of the candidates for sheriff. Well,

it's the relationship there is not Suarez implies Anderson, right?

If it's not Suarez, if it's not Anderson, it's Suarez, right? That's the contrapositive.

So see the reason, you know, I separate this out because like this alone, this just says not Suarez, Anderson.

But okay, for what? Like who's the best mechanic? Who makes the best milkshakes? Or like what?

Right, so that we're talking about most qualified candidate for sheriff. Now,

I think you could, if you wanted to, you could just like peg this piece onto here and then peg the MQ onto here, too,

if you want. I don't think it makes much of a difference. I just figure it's sort of easier for me to

represent the relationship this way, right? Because later on, you know, the argument goes on to say, thus,

conclusion, if the most qualified candidate is elected and Suarez is elected, then what? Then of course Anderson is elected, right?

Because this is my world of most qualified candidates, you know, who's in my world?

Well, Suarez and Anderson, right? So if it's not Suarez, it's Anderson. If it's not Anderson, it's Suarez.

And now they just told me, oh, we're electing from your world of most qualified candidates.

Well, then, yeah, of course, it's either Suarez and Anderson. And you told me Suarez is not elected.

Of course, Anderson is. So at this point, I wouldn't even, I didn't, like honestly, on my paper, this is all I had, right?

So I think you could, I suppose you could like sort of continue, you could continue to use, utilize logic, draw a line,

start mapping, translating the conclusion. I don't think there's a clean way to do it, right? Like, okay, so we are

electing the most qualified person, right? And we're not electing, right? We're not electing Suarez, right?

We're not electing Suarez. So there, if, right, if, if this whole thing, if, if this and

statement, the conjunction statement, right? If this thing and this thing, then what? Then, of course, we're electing

Anderson. But like, I, I'm not really sure this is helpful, right? How helpful is this to translate this into logic?

I mean, I don't know. I think it's not, right? So you got to remember logic as a language,

it's very helpful for a lot of stuff, but there's, it's not an end in and of itself.

You don't want to push the translation of logic just for the sake of pushing the translation of logic, right?

Because you do that only as far as helps you get the right answer choices. Now, yeah, of course, in practice,

it's always good to do that, right? That's, that's why I say, like, on paper, when the clock was ticking on my paper,

this was all I had.

Anyway, so, you know, now that I guess we have this, let's take a look at the answers. So ASUS, if the

So here, I already don't like this, because, you know, why didn't you name the lowest bidder, right?

It should say, to make this match our stimulus, right, it should say something like, if, I don't know, if A is not the

lowest bidder, then C is the lowest bidder. And then you conclude, thus, if the contract goes to the lowest bidder, and

A doesn't get it, then C does get it, right? So then they introduce in the

conclusion a new person, Q, who gets the contract, and C doesn't, then they will have been awarded to the lowest bidder.

I mean, I, you know, what I just explained there was the focus on why this doesn't match

this, right? But I think this is actually a fine argument, and by that I mean valid, right? If the excavation contract does not go

to the lowest bidder, then it will go to C, right? So, contrapositive, if it doesn't go to C, then it went to the lowest bidder, right?

So if Q gets the contract and C does not, right, C didn't get the contract, then we know it went to the lowest bidder.

It doesn't matter if this lowest bidder happened to be called Q, right? So this is a valid argument,

just like how this is a valid argument, but the structure is very different.

Okay, so A's gone. B says, if the lowest bidder on sanitation contract is not D, then it's R. See, this is really good.

The low, in the universe of lowest bidder, we have a relationship not D implies R, right?

If you're talking about lowest bidder, well, you got your options. D, if it's not D, then it's R. If it's not R, then it's D.

So it's D or R, right? So what do we need to conclude? Before you even read this,

I mean, this is a really good exercise. Try to

construct yourself what the conclusion must say in order for B to be right, right?

The lowest bidder, most qualified candidate. Election results, bid results, right?

So who gets the contract? If the contract goes to lowest bidder, right? If the, I don't, I mean, I guess I use A for

contract awarded or I don't know, E is for election, so maybe C, A for contract awarded to the lowest bidder and,

right, the contract is awarded not to D, then the contract is awarded to R.

R, Ramsey, right? Which is exactly what it says. So if the contract goes to lowest bidder,

it doesn't go to D, then it goes to R. Perfect. C says if K is not awarded the contract, then J will be.

whoever is being awarded, just like within the world of most qualified, the relationship is not K implies J, right?

If K is not awarded, then J will be. If J is not awarded, then K will be. So far, so good.

Now, in order to make C correct, it's not, but in order to make C correct,

you have to have some other thing happen to whoever is getting awarded, just like how you have to have some other thing,

election, getting elected rather, happen to whoever's most qualified, right?

Whoever is most qualified gets elected. So who's most qualified? Look into the world. You get a, you get this relationship, right?

So here, I don't know, what could happen to someone is awarded? I guess get paid, right? Let's just say get paid.

Okay, so we're gonna pay in cash, let's say. No, in gold, right?

We're gonna pay in gold whoever is awarded the contract and,

right, and we, and who didn't get paid in gold?

Well, you know, let's say, and K did not get paid in gold. Then we can conclude,

well, guess who did get paid in gold? J did, right? Because you're paying in gold whoever's awarded the contract.

Now you look into the world, who's awarded the contract? Well, it's K or J, right?

These are only options. And K wasn't paid, therefore J was paid. Now, this will be right. This will be right.

This is not what the conclusion to C says, right? Definitely not this. What does the conclusion C say?

Well, C says, it says if the contract goes to the lowest bidder, which is, I mean, this is an idea we don't,

it's going to lowest bidder, okay, and it doesn't go to J. Fine. So the contract is not awarded to J, right?

The contract is not awarded to J. Then it's awarded to K. Well, yeah, of course, right? Of course.

I mean, that's just what, right? If we were already told these are the only two people could possibly get the award,

be awarded the contract. Now it's not awarded to J, then it's going to K. And now you just threw in here this extra fact that,

oh, but it also went to the lowest bidder. So basically K's the lowest bidder, right?

I mean, you could have said something like, oh, so if the contract goes to the clown wearing the yellow hat and it doesn't go to J,

then it will go to K. So now I just know about K. Oh, but you're a clown wearing a yellow hat, right?

It's a valid argument. Fine. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And now I have this additional information about K, that K's the lowest bidder, right?

But okay, you know, that's not, that doesn't, right? The job here is to parallel, is to find the matching parallel argument structure.

And while this is a valid argument, it's just, it doesn't match. And D says, if H did not submit the lowest bid on the maintenance,

This is going to give us a different relationship. If H did not, then E did not. You're not going to be able to conclude this, right?

So if you want to say something happens to, you know, who was awarded the submission of the lowest bid.

If we award the contract to whoever submitted the lowest bid, then within our lowest bid world, I don't know if there's anybody else in there

because this is not an or relationship. In this relationship, I know for my most qualified, we got two people, right?

Possibly two people, S or A. If not S, then it's A. If not A, this, this doesn't tell me anything. This is not an or relationship.

There could be another dude named anything, you know, that's also in this world. So if a contract does go to the lowest bidder, right?

And it's not awarded, right? It's not awarded to E, then what? Then nothing. I can't, I just, I can't conclude.

You cannot conclude it will not be awarded at H, right? This is not even a valid argument.

Who's our lowest bidder? Here we have, if it's not P, then it's S. So, so far, so good, right? So far, so good.

Now, in order to make this right, you just say, oh, let's award the contract to the lowest bidder and what?

And we are not awarding it to P. Therefore, we must be awarding it to S, right?

Where the S and P can, you can, you can change up the S and P. But look, look what they say.

So if S does not get the contract and P does not get the contract, right?

So neither S nor P gets contract, then yeah, of course it will not be awarded to the lowest bidder because the lowest bidder consists of P or S, right?

So this is a valid argument. It's fine. It's correct. But it's not the argument that we're looking for, right?

This is the conclusion that we're looking for, not this. So E's wrong.