eitijan wrote:Why not C?

Look at the original argument.

Studies show that children who listen too much classic music are more likely than others to become silent adults. Shawn, who is a silent adult, must have listened more classic music as a child than I did, since I am not silent.

It starts with a cause and effect.

Cause: Listening To Too Much Classical Music

Effect: Become Silent Adult

Then it goes from effect to cause.

Effect: Shawn is silent.

Cause: Therefore, Shawn must have listened to more classical music than I did.

Now look at answer choice C/(3).

C starts with a cause and effect.

Cause: Fat

Effect: Shorter Life

Then it goes to cause again.

Causes: Tom is fat. Peter is thin.

Then effect.

Effect: Tom expected to live a shorter life than Peter will.

So the original argument starts with cause and effect and then reverses cause and effect, using effect as the basis for a conclusion about cause.

C, on the other hand, starts with cause and effect but does not reverse cause and effect. Rather C uses cause to predict effect.

Thank you Marty.
I got why C is incorrect.

But still not convinced with 'A' as the answer. Could you please elaborate for other options as well and why 'A' is the best pick.

eitijan wrote:Thank you Marty.
I got why C is incorrect.

But still not convinced with A as the answer. Could you please elaborate for other options as well and why A is the best pick.

The source from which you got this question has it posted incorrectly. Here is what I believe to be the correct form. I bet that it will make more sense to you now.

Studies show that children who listen to too much classical music are more likely than others to become silent adults. Shawn, who is a silent adult, must have listened more classical music as a child than I did, since I am not silent.

Which of the following most closely parallels the logical structure above?

(A) The shoe store in the city must have had a bigger advertisement in the Today paper than the shoe store in the countryside. The shoe store in the city sold twice as many shoes as the shoe store in the countryside did last week, and a Today paper advertisement has been shown to increase the number of shoes sold.

(B) Studies show that fat people live shorter lives, on average, than thin people do. Tom is a fat man and therefore might be expected to live a shorter life than Peter, who is a thin man.

(C) The mayor stated that all meetings would be canceled for the day if rainfall last night were greater than five inches. Therefore, since the rainfall was only four inches, we must be attending the meeting today.

(D) According to research, people with unusual math talent do not achieve their true potential unless they are given formal lessons. Therefore Jeff, who has achieved his full math potential without formal lessons must not have unusual math talent.

(E) People who like dogs also like cats. Karen does not like cats, so she must not like dogs either.