Logical Reasoning

PT141 · S4 · Q12 Worldwide, more books were sold

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Worldwide, more books were sold last year than in any previous year.

Statements

Math-y Comparison Last year > any previous year # of books sold

Last year > any previous year # of cookbooks sold

Last year, 1st time ever, cookbooks sold intended for beginners < 50% intended for non-beginners > 50%

Last year > any previous years # of cookbooks bought by pros

Distinction (one of the few)

Problem-Free Cooking is a cookbook, written for beginners, and, unlike almost all other books, it's available on every continent.

Evaluate

Is there any way to combine any of these ideas?

Typically, if we're handed a few general statements/rules and then given a specific fact (like Problem-Free Cooking), we want to see if any of those rules/statements apply to that specific fact.

We know that it's a cookbook, but there's no rule "if cookbook, then ___ ", so the fact that it's a cookbook doesn't tell us anything.

We know it's written for beginners. Does that mean purchased by beginners? Not necessarily. Professional cooks might buy cookbooks intended for beginners for their friends as gifts. We can't clearly connect this with our factoid that for the first time ever, most of the cookbooks purchased were bought by professional cooks.

And we know it's available on every continent, but that doesn't combine with any of the earlier facts.

The other place we'd look for combining ideas is with the multiple Mathematical Comparisons. Is there something we can mathematically derive by combining those?

Goal

Look for the most provable answer we can find, probably having to do with combining 2 or more of those first four math-y ideas.

12.

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

  1. Correct

    Last year there were more

    Why this is right

    This combines the 2nd and 3rd claims. The 2nd claim says number of cookbooks sold was highest ever The 3rd claim says the % of cookbooks sold that were not intended for beginners was highest ever So if last year's slate of cookbooks had the highest percentage ever of "advanced" cookbooks, and last year's slate of cookbooks was the biggest raw total of cookbooks ever, then that would have to output the greatest number of advanced cookbooks sold in one year. How do we know last year's % for advanced (i.e. not intended for beginner) was highest ever? We know it's the all time high, because last year was the first time it ever passed the 50% most threshold. If numbers help you, here are some: Last Year All years prior Total Cookbooks 1 million < 1 million Sold % of cookbooks sold that > 50% < 50% were not for beginners A bigger percentage of a bigger total is why we know not-beginner cookbooks had its best year ever.

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

    60% picked this

  2. The best-selling cookbook last year

    Out of Scope: best-selling

    We don't have any information at all about which type of cookbook sold best.

    5% picked this

  3. Sales of cookbooks intended for

    Unsupported

    It's possible sales were lower or higher. There are two competing forces: - it was a bad year for beginners' cookbooks, because a lower percentage than ever of cookbooks sold were for beginners. but - it was also a good year for beginners' cookbooks, because there were more cookbooks sold overall A smaller percentage of a bigger total may come out to be bigger than before, smaller, or around the same, depending on how far that percentage vs. that total moved in their respective directions.

    10% picked this

  4. Most of the cookbooks purchased

    Too Strong: most

    We know that professional cooks bought more cookbooks than ever before last year. But professional cooks might still only be 1% of the people buying cookbooks. There aren't that many professional cooks in the world, relative to everyone else. Even if they bought cookbooks at the same rate we clueless folk do, they still would be a tiny, tiny market share. So we can't support this answer, and common sense would tell us it's almost certainly not true in any real world that resembles ours. This trap answer is trying to get us to think that, "Since there's an uptick in advanced cookbooks, there's probably a lot of professional cooks buying cookbooks." But all kinds of people buy cookbooks "not intended for beginners". If you're intermediate or advanced or professional, you're buying books that are "not intended for beginners".

    23% picked this

  5. Problem-Free Cooking sold more copies

    Too Strong: sold more copies

    We don't know if Problem-Free Cooking sold a single copy, let alone more than any other cookbook of a given type. We were only told that it was available on every continent.

    3% picked this

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