Logical Reasoning

PT127 · S1 · Q25 It is difficult to grow

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It is difficult to grow cacti in a humid climate.

Statements

conditional (it is A to be B: B → A)

It's hard to grow cacti in a humid climate. Humid climate → hard to grow cacti

It's hard to raise orange trees in a cold climate. Cold climate → hard to raise orange tree

In most parts of the country, it's easy to grow cacti or easy to raise orange trees.

Evaluate

The correct answer on Must Be False almost always does one of two things: 1. Contradicts a conditional relationship provided 2. Contradicts an available inference we can make by combining claims.

There are two quasi-conditionals in the first two sentences. So a correct answer could say something like, , or .

Can we combine claims to infer anything?

We see the Overlapping Concept of "easy/difficult to grow cacti" and "easy/difficult to raise orange trees". This suggests that we can combine these claims.

The contrapositive to our conditionals would be,

not difficult → not humid to grow cacti

not difficult to → not cold raise orange trees

If they tell us that in most parts of the country it's easy to grow cacti or easy to raise orange trees, then we know that in most parts of the country it's either "not humid", "not cold", or both.

Goal

Look for an answer that contradicts either of the two conditionals in the first two sentences,

or look for an answer that contradicts the inference we made by applying the final sentence to those two conditionals, to derive:

most parts of country → ~Humid or ~Cold

25.

If the statements above are true, which one of the following must be false?

  1. Correct

    Half of the country is

    Why this is right

    This contradicts the inference we made by combining the Most claim with the two conditionals. In order to grow cacti easily, it can't be humid. In order to raise orange trees, it can't be cold. If half of the country is both humid and cold, as this answer choice says, then in 50% of the country you can't grow cacti easily and you can't raise orange trees easily. That would mean in at most 50% of the country can you grow cacti or orange trees easily. This would contradict the final sentence, which says in more than 50% you can grow one or the other easily.

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

    56% picked this

  2. Most of the country is

    Out of Scope: hot Compatible

    Temperatures don't exist in a binary where it's always cold or hot. If most of the country is hot, then most of the country is not cold. And if most of the country is not cold, then in most of the country it's hard to raise orange trees. Does that contradict the last sentence? No, because the last sentence isn't saying, "in most of the country it's easy to raise orange trees", it's saying "in most of the country it's easy to raise orange trees or cacti". It may be that in 30% of the country it's easy to grow oranges, and in a non-overlapping 30% of the country it's easy to grow cacti. That would mean that in 60% (i.e. most) of the country, you can grow oranges or cacti easily.

    3% picked this

  3. Some parts of the country

    Compatible

    In order to contradict a weakly worded answer, we would need to have read something extreme. To contradict this answer, we would need to know that all parts of the country are cold, humid, or both. Were we told that? Nope, so nothing we read contradicts this answer.

    14% picked this

  4. It is not possible to

    Compatible

    This seems very tempting, since we heard "in most parts of the country, it's easy to grow cacti", didn't we? Doesn't "easy" imply "possible? Yes, it would. But we only heard that "in most parts of the country, its easy to grow cacti or raise orange trees". I can say, "Most NFL players either played football in college or played in a league on the surface of Mars". I can say, "Most US Presidents have either served their term on planet Earth or served their term on Mars". These are stupid, vacuously true statements in the sense that there are 0 NFL players and 0 US Presidents who were on Mars. But it's true that most NFL players can check box 1 (college ball) or box 2 (martian ball), so it's a true statement. Similarly, it might be that in this country it's impossible to raise / grow cacti anywhere. But in 60% of the country, you can easily raise orange trees. If so, then it's still true to say, "In most of this country you can easily raise orange trees or cacti".

    22% picked this

  5. Most parts of the country

    Compatible

    If most of the country is humid, then you can only grow cacti easily in at most 49% of the country. Does that contradict the final sentence, then? No, because the final sentence is giving us two options: In most of the country, you can check one or more of these boxes: [ ] easy to grow cacti [ ] easy to raise orange trees Up to 49% of the country can check box 1, so as long as at least 2% of non-overlapping parts can check box 2, then the last sentence can still be true.

    5% picked this

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