Your cake will be tasty only if you use fresh ingredients which you can buy at the market. You did not go to the market, so your cake will not be tasty.
Which one of the following most closely parallels the reasoning used in the above argument?
A You can only be happy if you are healthy. To be healthy, you have to eat a lot of vegetables. You eat a lot of vegetables so you must be happy.
B She either went to school or the playground. She is not in the playground, so she must have gone to school.
C If you light a candle, there is light and, if there is light, I am able to read to you. You must have lit a candle because I can read.
D Listening to loud music through earphones damages hearing. His hearing is fine which means that he must not have listened to loud music through earphones.
E Good knowledge of the car is necessary for fixing it. Without fixing the car, we will not arrive at the wedding in time. We will surely be late as we do not have good knowledge of the car.
Step 1
You need to identify what type of argument is in the statement. You can represent it using letters which is a common method for this type of question, or you may have a different way.
“Your cake will be tasty only if you use fresh ingredients which you can buy at the market. You did not go to the market, so your cake will not be tasty.”
Not P therefore not Q.
Step 2
Go through each option and decide which type of logic is being used for each one:
A | P therefore Q |
B | Not P therefore Q |
C | P therefore Q |
D | Not P therefore Q |
E | Not P therefore not Q |
Step 3
You can now match which statement is the same type as in the question. In this case it is option E.