Logical Reasoning

PT145 · S2 · Q23 Most of the mines that Moradco

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Most of the mines that Moradco operates in the province of Velyena have never violated environmental regulations.

Statements

quantifier (most) Most Moradco mines never violated in Velyena enviro regulations

conditional / quantifier (every)

Moradco → violated some gold mine enviro regulation

Evaluate

We're given a Most statement and a conditional All statement. In general, Most statements are only interesting as a starting point if you have two most claims about the same group, because then you can prove some overlap.

given Most A's are B these, Most A's are C

we can infer: B and C overlap at least once

But since there aren't two Most claims, the conditional should automatically command our attention. What does a Must Be True question do with a conditional?

It either chains it together with other conditionals (there aren't any other conditionals in this two claim paragraph), or we apply this conditional to a fact that was provided, usually via the contrapositive.

Does the conditional in the 2nd sentence apply to what's talked about in the 1st sentence? Is there any Overlapping Concept?

Yes, both sentences are talking about whether or not something has violated environmental regulations.

We know that most of M's mines in Velyena have never violated. And we know that all of M's gold mines have violated.

So none of those mines we're talking about in the first sentence are gold mines.

Goal

Since the mines being talked about in the first sentence clearly aren't gold mines, since they have never violated an environmental regulation, we can infer that .

Formally,

Most Moradco's never mines in Velyena violated

+

never → not one of violated Moradco's gold mines -------------------------------------------------

Most Moradco's not one of mines in Velyena Moradco's gold mines

Like most Must Be True questions that test our ability to apply a conditional rule, you have to contrapose the rule to see how the available fact(s) triggers it.

23.

Which one of the following statements follows logically from the statements above?

  1. Moradco operates more mines in

    Too Strong: #1 mine operator

    We have no basis for thinking Moradco operates more mines than any other company, let alone derive that they are they #1 most numerous mine operator. They could just as easily be the mining company with the fewest mines in Velyena.

    0% picked this

  2. The total number of gold

    Unknown Comparison Relative vs. Absolute

    There was no information at all about actual numbers of gold mines. Most and Every aren't numbers, they're percentages (over 50% and 100%, respectively). Just because "every" means 100% and "most" only means "over 50%" doesn't mean that there are more gold mines than Velyenan mines. There might be 100 mines in Velyena (at least 51 of which have never violated regulations). And there might be 6 gold mines that Moradco operates throughout the world (all 6 of which have violated regulations).

    3% picked this

  3. Most of the gold mines

    Unknown Most Group

    Most is a really dangerous word on Must Be True and Must Be Assumed (i.e. Necessary Assumption). We can never derive a statement about "Most X's" if the stimulus didn't provide a statement about "Most X's". There was no statement in the stimulus that said "Most gold mines from Moradco". We only had "Most Moradco mines in Velyena". This answer can be disproven with some numbers. There might be 100 mines in Velyena (at least 51 of which have never violated regulations, up to 49 of which have violated regulations). And there might be 11 gold mines that Moradco operates throughout the world (all 11 of which have violated regulations). Do we know that most of those gold mines are outside Velyena? Do at least 6 of them have to be outside Velyena? No, all 11 of them could be in Velyena and it wouldn't go against anything we were told. If there are 100 Moradco mines in Velyena, up to 49 of them could be gold mines.

    10% picked this

  4. Correct

    Most of the mines that

    Why this is right

    This is what we predicted. The idea behind Inference questions is testing our ability to synthesize. Given these two claims: A is B B is C We derive A is C. We filter out the thing the two claims have in common and join the other two things. Given these claims: Most of Moradco's ... have violated. Velyena mines If have violated, then not Moradco's gold mines We filter out the Overlapping Concept to derive: Most of Moradco's Velyena mines not Moradco's gold mines

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

    86% picked this

  5. Most of the mines that

    Unknown Most Group

    We can never derive a statement about "Most X's" if the stimulus didn't provide a statement about "Most X's". There was no statement in the stimulus that said "Most of M's mines in the world". We only had "Most Moradco mines in Velyena". This answer can be disproven with some numbers. There might be 10 mines in Velyena (at least 6 of which have never violated regulations and thus are not gold). And there might be 100 gold mines throughout the world, 100 of which have violated regulations. In that legal scenario, Moradco has 110 total mines throughout the world, and most of them (at least 100 of them) are gold mines.

    1% picked this

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