Valid or Invalid?
The rules of this test are simple: it's your job to determine whether an argument
is valid or not.
All the arguments are syllogisms. Here is a standard example:
All humans are mortal
All Greeks are humans
Therefore, all Greeks are mortal
An argument is valid if and only if the conclusion necessarily follows from the premises.
Thus, the argument above is valid, because if all humans are mortal, and if all
Greeks are human, it follows as a matter of logical necessity that all Greeks are
mortal.
It is important to stress that this kind of logical entailment has nothing to do
with the truth of the premises or conclusion. It is only about working out whether
the conclusion necessarily follows from the premises.
This is really all the information you need to take the test. You will be asked
to assess the validity of 15 syllogisms, and this is just a matter of saying whether
the conclusion is entailed by the premises. You can do that, surely?
Oh, one final thing. You'll be timed. The clock starts when you hit the button
below.