P9, S2, Q23 Forum

[179orBust]

Can anyone please help me with this question?
After reading the explanation in the Manhattan forum I understand how to map out the conditional logic, but how would I know that the premise is useless in this question? I'm having a tough time extracting the necessary info to answer sufficient assumption questions that involve conditional logic. Thanks in advance!

[Clyde Frog]

Can anyone please help me with this question?
After reading the explanation in the Manhattan forum I understand how to map out the conditional logic, but how would I know that the premise is useless in this question? I'm having a tough time extracting the necessary info to answer sufficient assumption questions that involve conditional logic. Thanks in advance!

Why do you say that the premise is useless in this question?

[mornincounselor]

Post removed.

[Clyde Frog]

Surely, everything before the colon is irrelevant. The fact that the speaker is a poor farmer is irrelevant like the subjects of math word problems from grade school. It could have read:

A lush man at the local pub shouted "you are either poor or rich; and you are either honest or you are dishonest." You attempt to shoo the man away but he continues "and and all the poor people are honest." You ask him what his point is. The man responds "I have proven, all rich people are dishonest."

That's not a premise. The poor farmer is the speaker. The same way as you see questions like P11-S2-Q22 and a million others drawn out.

[179orBust]

Sorry, I should've been more clear. One of the seemingly relevant premises---"all poor farmers are honest"--- is completely irrelevant in this question. In other words, you can solve the question without it. After reading the Manhattan explanation, I can see why the right answer is correct, but I'm having a difficult time extracting the relevant info in SA questions that rely on conditional logic. In short, I'd really appreciate if you can explain how I would be able to tell whether a premise is relevant/ irrelevant.

Also, I haven't read the conditional logic chapter in Manhattan yet so I'm hoping that will clear things up.

[Clyde Frog]

Sorry, I should've been more clear. One of the seemingly relevant premises---"all poor farmers are honest"--- is completely irrelevant in this question. In other words, you can solve the question without it. After reading the Manhattan explanation, I can see why the right answer is correct, but I'm having a difficult time extracting the relevant info in SA questions that rely on conditional logic. In short, I'd really appreciate if you can explain how I would be able to tell whether a premise is relevant/ irrelevant.

Also, I haven't read the conditional logic chapter in Manhattan yet so I'm hoping that will clear things up.

Fortunately there aren't many SA questions like this. Regardless, although that premise is not needed it will still completely prove the conclusion when the correct answer is added in. Just make the conclusion work and you'll be fine.

[Christine (MLSAT)]

There's no way to know beforehand that a premise is unnecessary to closing up a Sufficient Assumption question.

Imagine if we'd had this argument:

• PREMISE:
  1) Pizza has cheese
  2) Pizza has garlic
  3) Pizza has tomato sauce
  CONCLUSION:
  Therefore, pizza is awesome.

Which of those premises are important? I dunno, at a glance they all are. But a totally valid answer to a Sufficient Assumption question could be "Anything with cheese is awesome." If that were the answer, then apparently premises #2 and #3 aren't needed here to get the job done. There's absolutely no way I could have predicted that beforehand though. And if the answer had been "Anything with garlic is awesome", then premise #2 would totally matter, and suddenly premise #1 would be irrelevant.

Clyde Frog is right - just stick to your task (making the argument happy) and don't worry about what premises get left on the side of the road.