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Some planning committee members—those representing the construction industry—have significant financial interests in the committee’s decisions. No one who is on the planning committee lives in the suburbs, although many of them work there.
If the statements above are true, which one of the following must also be true?

(A) No persons with significant financial interests in the planning committee’s decisions are not in the construction industry.
(B) No person who has significant financial interest in the planning committee’s decisions lives in the suburbs.
(C) Some persons with significant financial interests in the planning committee’s decisions work in the suburbs.
(D) Some planning committee members who represent the construction industry do not work in the suburbs.
(E) Some persons with significant financial interests in the planning committee’s decisions do not live in the suburbs.

Can somebody suggest how to breakdown Option A. What do we deduce from double negative statement A. And what should be approach to simplify such statements.

Plz provide kudos if you liked practice qs.

Answer E.

We are given Some construction industry representative in the planning commission have financial interest. And No One in planning commission lives in Suburb although many work there.

(E) Some persons with significant financial interests in the planning committee’s decisions do not live in the suburbs. --> true. This includes the construction industry people also. So, its the BEST answer choice. We can cancel C also as we have got the best answer.

Hi Abhimahna,

I dont understand why C is incorrect at all. This is not a beauty contest like Sentence correction where we have to go for the best option.

This is Critical Reasoning, there HAS to be some reason to discard C otherwise we have no reason to not accept it as the answer to a "MUST BE TRUE" question .

Thanks
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Hi Abhimahna,

I dont understand why C is incorrect at all. This is not a beauty contest like Sentence correction where we have to go for the best option.

This is Critical Reasoning, there HAS to be some reason to discard C otherwise we have no reason to not accept it as the answer to a "MUST BE TRUE" question .

Thanks

Hi kunal1608 ,

The argument has divided members of planning committee into two groups

Type 1. those representing the construction industry --> They have financial interests.
Type 2. Others.

Then it says, no one works in suburbs but many of them work there.

Now, it may happen that these "many" includes only the type 2 we discussed. How do you know "these" many must include type 1 as well?

Now, C is saying the same. It is saying some members of type 2 work in suburbs. But this can be false as well. Hence, incorrect.

Now, E is saying some members of type 1 donot live in suburbs. We are already told that no member live in suburbs. Hence, E must be true.

Does that make sense?
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kunal1608

Hi Abhimahna,

I dont understand why C is incorrect at all. This is not a beauty contest like Sentence correction where we have to go for the best option.

This is Critical Reasoning, there HAS to be some reason to discard C otherwise we have no reason to not accept it as the answer to a "MUST BE TRUE" question .

Thanks

Hi kunal1608 ,

The argument has divided members of planning committee into two groups

Type 1. those representing the construction industry --> They have financial interests.
Type 2. Others.

Then it says, no one works in suburbs but many of them work there.

Now, it may happen that these "many" includes only the type 2 we discussed. How do you know "these" many must include type 1 as well?

Now, C is saying the same. It is saying some members of type 2 work in suburbs. But this can be false as well. Hence, incorrect.

Now, E is saying some members of type 1 donot live in suburbs. We are already told that no member live in suburbs. Hence, E must be true.

Does that make sense?

Yes, it does.

Is there an easier way to solve problems like these which have 3 pieces of information given. Maybe a Boolean logical expression ?


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Lets state the premises:

a) Some planning committee members—those representing the construction industry—have significant financial interests in the committee’s decisions.
PC members - construction have FI (financial interests). please note that this doesn't mean that PC members - non construction DOESN'T have FI nor people outside PC don't have FI)

b) No one who is on the planning committee lives in the suburbs, although many of them work there.
PC don't live in suburbs, but MANY (not MOST) work in suburb. where PC = PC - construction + PC - non construction

so essentially there are 3 groups
PC - constructions (these definitely have FI)
PC - non constrcution (these may or may not have FI)
non-PC (these may or may not have FI)


lets review the choices

(A) No persons with significant financial interests in the planning committee’s decisions are not in the construction industry. This says that only PC - construction have FI. PC - non construction and non-PC both can have FI.


(B) No person who has significant financial interest in the planning committee’s decisions lives in the suburbs.
IT IS A MUST BE CORRECT QUESTION. what about non-PC members (if non-PC members have FI, then its very well possible that non - PC folks live in suburb)

(C) Some persons with significant financial interests in the planning committee’s decisions work in the suburbs.
Remember it is a must be correct question. if we can show that there is a possibility that NONE of the persons with FI work in the suburb then we can eliminate this choice.
in premise b) it has been mentioned that MANY (NOT ALL) of PC work in suburb. PC - construction have FI. what if PC - non construction don't have FI and only PC - non construction work in suburbs. PC - construction live anywhere else but suburbs.


(D) Some planning committee members who represent the construction industry do not work in the suburbs.
this choice is similar to choice c. show the possibility that NONE of PC - construction work in suburb and this choice falls. this is exactly what we did in choice c

(E) Some persons with significant financial interests in the planning committee’s decisions do not live in the suburbs. this is the answer.
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Some planning committee members—those representing the construction industry—have significant financial interests in the committee’s decisions. No one who is on the planning committee lives in the suburbs, although many of them work there.
If the statements above are true, which one of the following must also be true?

(A) No persons with significant financial interests in the planning committee’s decisions are not in the construction industry.
(B) No person who has significant financial interest in the planning committee’s decisions lives in the suburbs.
(C) Some persons with significant financial interests in the planning committee’s decisions work in the suburbs.
(D) Some planning committee members who represent the construction industry do not work in the suburbs.
(E) Some persons with significant financial interests in the planning committee’s decisions do not live in the suburbs.

Can somebody suggest how to breakdown Option A. What do we deduce from double negative statement A. And what should be approach to simplify such statements.

Plz provide kudos if you liked practice qs.


For posterity:
I think, this can be solved more effectively using Ven-diagram. Through elimination, we can easily come down to C and E.

Quote:
(C) Some persons with significant financial interests in the planning committee’s decisions work in the suburbs.

Orange colored and Green colored boxes have no overlap between them, hence can't be inferred.

Quote:
(E) Some persons with significant financial interests in the planning committee’s decisions do not live in the suburbs.

This is the only remaining option.
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Thanks venn diagrams is a creative approach. I could not have thought of this approach. I actually went down the wrong path where I started diagramming the question but none of the answer choices were lining up correctly and I was losing time so I took the process of elimination.

I was able to narrow down to C,D,E easily. From there I applied the truth test more on that below.

One way could be to do the Truth Test meaning asking ourselves the question - does this have to be 100% true or could it be false?

After you narrow down to C, D, E, it is pretty clear to see that only E is true 100% of the time.

E is absolutely true 100% of the time.

C - could be true but does not have to be true 100%, we do not know for sure.

D - Same as C, this could be true, but need not be true.


Tough question, wow scuh close answer choices. Good learning.


Thanks,
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