eligible employee → granted up to 6 weeks paid parental leave


eligible employee → apply for benefit at least three months prior to beginning of the parental leave period AND have at least one year of full-time employment with the company at the time of application


Normally, I would interpret this conditional as a one-way conditional. In other words, satisfying the two necessary conditions would not automatically make one an eligible employee.


However, notice that the stimulus tells us that we are getting the “Company policy.” This is the policy regarding parental leave – we’re not told that this is just one of the policies, and that there could be others that are relevant to parental leave that we don’t know about. Thus, the idea that there could be other necessary conditions that are required in order to be eligible, but were simply left out of the policy we’re given, is not a reasonable interpretation. That’s why in this context, we can interpret the second sentence as a biconditional. The two conditions that are required in order to be eligible are also, if both are met, sufficient to be eligible:


apply for benefit at least three months prior to beginning of the parental leave period AND have at least one year of full-time employment with the company at the time of application → eligible


(Please note that reading the second sentence biconditionally because we’re told the stimulus set out a “Company policy” is a highly unusual feature of this question. Do not take this to mean that the statement “To be X, you must be Y” naturally sets forth a biconditional. It doesn’t.)

An argument that conforms to these policies can take many forms. It could give us premises that establish someone’s an eligible employee, and then conclude that they should get up to 6 weeks of paid parental leave, or that the person satisfied the two necessary (and sufficient) conditions for being eligible.



Or it could tell us that someone satisfied the two sufficient (and necessary) conditions for being eligible, and conclude that they can get up to 6 weeks of parental leave (because they are eligible).



We could also get an argument that says someone has not satisfied at least one of the necessary (and sufficient) conditions for being eligible, and therefore they are not eligible.