Logical Reasoning

PT104 · S1 · Q12 Clothes made from natural fibers

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Clothes made from natural fibers such as cotton, unlike clothes made from artificial fibers such as polyester often shrink when washed at high temperatures.

Facts

comparison

natural fibers (f.e. cotton): shrink when washed on hot artificial fibers (f.e. polyester): don't shrink when hot-washed

causal connector (the reason for this is)

tightly curled >> shrink when hot-washed in orig state

causal + conditional (cause / all)

Hot wash >> fibers return to orig state

Evaluate

We know two things about hot-washing and two things about natural fibers and two things about original state. So there's got to be some inference in these overlapping concepts.

1) hot-washing return to original state 2) hot-washing shrinks natural fibers 3) original state of natural fibers is tightly curled

It sounds like we can infer that when natural fibers go from artificially straightened back to their original tightly curled state, that shrinks the clothes.

If that's the case, then the fact that artificial fibers don't shrink when hot-washed is an indication that their original state is NOT tightly curled.

Goal

Pick the most provable answer. It'll probably deal with the implied cause effect connection of "going from straight to curled >> shrinks clothes" or the implied difference of .

12.

Which one of the following is most strongly supported by the information above?

  1. Washing clothes made from natural

    Unsupported

    This makes a Relative vs. Absolute switch that we can't support. The final sentence is in Absolute yes/no terms: high temps cause all fibers to return to original states. This is trying to translate that into a relative idea: less-high temps only cause natural fibers to partially return to their original states. We have no support for the idea that cold-water reverts natural fibers at all.

    3% picked this

  2. High temperatures have no effect

    Unsupported

    It makes sense that high temps would have less effect on a hybrid fabric than on a purely natural fiber fabric, since the artificial components won't shrink. But the garment might still shrink a bit, from the natural fibers going back to tightly curled.

    1% picked this

  3. Clothes made from natural fibers

    Out of Scope

    The stimulus is about shrinkage and the curl/straighten behavior of fibers under high temperatures. Stretchiness is a different physical property. Nothing in the passage tells us anything about how easily fabrics stretch.

    8% picked this

  4. If natural fibers that have

    Unsupported

    If we could artificially straighten tightly curled fibers the first time, what's stopping us from doing it again? It doesn't say the straightening can happen only once or that re-curled fibers can't be straightened again. We can't support this "one-straightening-only" rule.

    8% picked this

  5. Correct

    Artificial fibers are straight in

    Why this is right

    This gets at the Implied Difference. We know the reason why natural fibers shrink when hot washed: the hot wash returns the natural fibers to their original curled state. Since we know that artificial fibers don't shrink when hot washed, then they must not be curled in their original state.

    Skill tested: Most Supported · how this choice captures the argument's function is the move to repeat next time.

    79% picked this

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