Deduction is certain and infallible, in the sense that each step in deductive reasoning will lead us to some result, as certain as the law itself. But it does not follow that deduction will lead the reasoner to every result of a law or combination of laws.
William Stanley Jevons, The Principles of Science, IV(XXIV)
The tests below constitute a series designed to assess your ability to reason within classical propositional logic, also known as classical sentential logic.
In particular, you will have to deduce conclusions from premises, and these premises will be statements written in an abstract form. You must assume that the premises are true, and reason accordingly.
For example, if the abstract statement "B AND C" is a premise, you are to assume that "B AND C" is true, i.e. that the sentence "B" and the sentence "C" are each true. In this example, "B" might abbreviate the sentence "Black is a color" and "C" might abbreviate "Charlie was here", but this is irrelevant to the reasoning required by the tests below.
In the example above, "AND" is used as a logical connective.
The logical connectives used in the items on these tests are:
Each test has 10 items. In each item, you will be given some assumptions. each of which is an abstract statement. Your task is to select the one answer choice out of five options that must be true if the assumptions in the item are all assumed to be true.
Some of the incorrect answer choices will be necessarily false, assuming the assumptions in the item are true, and some may be true or may be false, assuming the assumptions in the item are true.
These tests are an assessment of the ability to reason deductively in the context of propositional logic. This ability is most likely the combination of several abilities, including the ability to work with abstract statements and the ability to discover relevant combinations and linkages within presented information.
The item type found in these tests resembles several item types that are common on professional intelligence tests, all requiring the ability to reason deductively within classical propositional logic.