Logical Reasoning

PT145 · S2 · Q25 Among small- to medium-sized

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Among small-to medium-sized marine mammals such as seals and dolphins, the longer an animal can stay submerged during a dive, the greater the depth the animal can reach.

Information

For seals and dolphins,

the longer can , the greater depth be submerged animal can reach

Dolphins can dive to greater depths than northern fur seals.

elephant seals can stay submerged longer than Weddell seals can.

Evaluate

On a Must Be False question, the correct answer almost always contradicts a conditional provided in the stimulus or an available inference we can make from the stimulus.

They didn't give us a conditional, but they gave us a Volume Dial relationship (aka Stepladder / Double-headed Line).

The way "the more x, the more y" seems to work is that we can always invert them and say "the less x, the less y", but we usually don't read them backwards (i.e. knowing something is more Y doesn't seem to definitively tell us more X).

However, in this context, the first sentence is saying if you listed all the seals and dolphins, the ones who rank higher on the "how long can stay submerged" scale also rank higher on the "how deep an animal can reach" scale.

So if you were to read the scale of , who ever is ranked #1 is also #1 on the .

We're told a head-to-head matchup between dolphins and northern fur seals seals, and one between elephant seals and W seals.

Goal

So we have two comparisons we can judge.

When it comes to "how long you can be submerged" / "how deep you can dive",

dolphins > northern fur seals elephant seal > Weddell seal

Those don't chain together, because we don't have any way to relate them to each other. So we'll just look for something to contradict one of these two.

25.

If the information above is accurate, then each of the following statements could be true EXCEPT:

  1. Dolphins can dive to greater

    Compatible

    The relationships in answer choice give us elephant seal > dolphins > Weddell seal That's compatible with our original relationships. I'll award 1st through 4th prize, so we can see how it works with both the answer and the original relationships. elephant seal > dolphins 1st 2nd Weddell seal > (northern fur seals seal) 3rd 4th dolphins > northern fur seals seal 2nd 4th elephant seal > Weddell seal 1st 3rd

    7% picked this

  2. Weddell seals can stay submerged

    Compatible

    The relationships in answer choice give us dolphins > Weddell seal > northern fur seal That's compatible with our original relationships. I'll award 1st through 4th prize, so we can see how it works with both the answer and the original relationships. dolphins > Weddell seal 1st 3rd northern fur seals > (elephant seal) 4th 2nd dolphins > northern fur seals 1st 4th elephant seal > Weddell seal 2nd 3rd

    7% picked this

  3. Weddell seals can dive to

    Compatible

    The relationships in answer choice give us Weddell seal > dolphins Weddell seal > northern fur seal That's compatible with our original relationships. I'll award 1st through 4th prize, so we can see how it works with both the answer and the original relationships. Weddell seal > dolphins 2nd 3rd Weddell seal > northern fur seal 2nd 4th dolphins > northern fur seal 3rd 4th elephant seal > Weddell seal 1st 2nd

    10% picked this

  4. Correct

    Northern fur seals can stay

    Why this is right

    The relationships in answer choice give us Northern Fur seals > Elephant seal Weddell seals > Dolphins We were originally told Dolphins > Northern Fur seals So if we copied the new relationships from this answer choice onto that original relationship, we'd have this continuum. W seals > Dolph > NF seals > Eleph seals But we were also originally told Eleph seals > W seals And that is contradicting what we have here.

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

    69% picked this

  5. Northern fur seals can stay

    Compatible

    The relationships in answer choice give us elephant seals > northern fur seals > Weddell seals That's compatible with our original relationships. I'll award 1st through 4th prize, so we can see how it works with both the answer and the original relationships. elephant seals > northern fur seals 2nd 3rd Weddell seal > (dolphins) 4th 1st dolphins > northern fur seals 1st 3rd elephant seals > Weddell seals 2nd 4th

    7% picked this

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