Hi, Brent -

A "necessary" (or required) condition is one that has to be met for the result or conclusion to be true. A "sufficient" condition is one that guarantees the result. For example, the condition "I have access to apples" is a NECESSARY condition to "I am making an apple pie today." It is not, however, a SUFFICIENT condition -- I may very well have access to apples without having any intention of making pie.

Using this example, the presented argument is roughly equivalent to:

"Some people argue that I couldn't have made an apple pie yesterday if I hadn't had any apples available. However, my neighbor down the street has a tree full of ripe apples, and he didn't make pie, so these people are obviously wrong."

Thus [A] is the correct answer.

Hope this helps. Please post again if you have any further questions!

Best,
Lyn

Natilie, in the discussion thread, contributor Lyn explained: A "necessary" (or required) condition is one that has to be met for the result or conclusion to be true. A "sufficient" condition is one that guarantees the result. For example, the condition "I have access to apples" is a NECESSARY condition to "I am making an apple pie today." It is not, however, a SUFFICIENT condition -- I may very well have access to apples without having any intention of making pie.

Using this example, the presented argument is roughly equivalent to:

"Some people argue that I couldn't have made an apple pie yesterday if I hadn't had any apples available. However, my neighbor down the street has a tree full of ripe apples, and he didn't make pie, so these people are obviously wrong."

Thus [A] is the correct answer. It is not wrong as you thought.

Hello Seyni, please look up the thread. There was a good explanation done by contributor Lyn Pierce.