A plumbing contractor is scheduling plumbers on her crew to work at

­Apologies, I have edited it. 

­A plumbing contractor is scheduling plumbers on her crew to work at five job sites next week - an apartment complex, a department store, an office building, a restaurant, and a school. Because of the proximities of and projected workloads at the various job sites, she has decided on the following requirements:

• Each plumber working on the apartment complex must also work on either the department store or the school
• A plumber must work on the office building if that plumber works on the restaurant
• Any plumber working on the restaurant but not on the school must also work on the department store
• Of the plumbers working on the department store, those who work on the school must also work on the office building

Any plumber working on the __1__ must also work on the __2__.

Select for 1 and 2 the two job sites that would complement the statement in a way that would accurately reexpress one of the requirements.

The correct answers to this question must fulfill the following requirement:

If a plumber works at the location named by blank 1, that plumber MUST work at the location named by blank 2.

Accordingly, a straightforward way to answer this question is to translate the second statement.

A plumber must work on the office building if that plumber works on the restaurant

translates to

If a plumber works on the restaurant, that plumber most work on the office building.

Once we have that translation, we can select restaurant for blank 1 and office building for blank 2 and be done.

If you don't see that move immediately, you can go through the choices and, for each choice, check to see what the statements say about it and whether the statements indicate that a plumber working at a given location must also work at another.

apartment complex

The first statement indicates that a plumber working on the apartment complex can work at two other possible locations, and none of the other statements further constrains where a plumber working on the apartment complex can work.

So, since a plumber working on the apartment complex has a choice of two other locations, it's not the case that a plumber working on the apartment complex must work at another particular location.

Eliminate.

department store

The only constraint given for the department store is the one given by the fourth statement, which indicates that, if plumbers work on the department store and the school, they must work on the office building.

Scanning the other statements, we find that there is no statement that indicates that all plumbers who work at the department store must also work at the school. Thus, it's also not the case that all who work on the department store must work on the office buidling.

Eliminate.

office building

There are no statements that indicate that plumbers who work on the office building must also work at another site.

Eliminate.

restaurant

As we saw above, if we translate the second statement we get the following:

If a plumber works on the restaurant, that plumber most work on the office building.

Thus, we see that restaurant and office building perfectly fill blanks 1 and 2 to produce the following correct statement:

Any plumber working on the restaurant must also work on the office building.

school

The only constraint associated with the school is presented by the fourth statement.

• Of the plumbers working on the department store, those who work on the school must also work on the office building

Scanning the other statements, we see that there is no statement that indicates that every plumber who works on the school must also work on the department store. In fact, the first and third statements put the department store together with other locations without the school.

Thus, the statements also don't indicate that the department store is always with the office building.

Eliminate.

Correct answer: restaurant, office building­

Thank you, this is much appreciated Marty! Are there any strategies/practices for such two part non quant questions?

­

In some cases, it helps to make a list of the constraints mentioned. (In this case, they are already in a list.)

Then, find an efficient, organized way to go through the answer choices.

For instance, in a case in which one choice hinges on the other in a specific way, you can go through them as I did, checking each first column choice to see how it may work with each of the second column ones.

In other cases, you'll simply check each choice individually against the passage.