Zack's Coffeehouse schedules free poetry readings almost every Wednesd

Zack's Coffeehouse schedules free poetry readings almost every Wednesday. Zack's offers half-priced coffee all day on every day that a poetry reading is scheduled.

Which one of the following can be properly inferred from the information above?

(A) Wednesday is the most common day on which Zack's offers half-priced coffee all day
(B) Most free poetry readings given at Zack's are scheduled for Wednesdays
(C) Free poetry readings are scheduled on almost every day that Zack's offers half-priced coffee all day
(D) Zack's offers half-priced coffee all day on most if not all Wednesdays
(E) On some Wednesdays Zack's does not offer half-priced coffee all day

The premises:
1. Free poetry readings on almost all Wednesdays.
2. Coffee half-priced when the readings are scheduled.

The Inference:
Coffee half-priced on almost all Wednesdays when the readings are scheduled.

A. Since the half-priced coffee is offered on 'almost' all Wednesdays, this option is incorrect as it talks about all Wednesdays.
B. This option does not talk about the price offered for coffee.
C. Per this option, the poetry readings are scheduled on the days when the coffee is offered half-priced (which is exactly the opposite as the coffee is half-priced on the days when the poetry readings are scheduled)
E. If X leads to Y, it does not mean not X leads to not Y. This is exactly what E talks about.

D is correct because Zack offers coffee half-priced all day 'almost' every Wednesday. This means some Wednesdays are not covered. And this is exactly what D talks about.

Press 'kudos' if my explanation helped in any possible way to clear your doubt.

This is indeed a tricky one - let me see if I can help .

The argument: We know that most Wed. Zach offers poetry reading. Whenever Zach offers poetry reading it offers half-price coffee all day.

To correctly infer we have to be careful not to make unwarranted assumptions. So avoid the following:

1a. Zack's only offers poetry readings on Wed.

2a. Zack's only offers drinks half-off when there is a poetry reading.

Instead, we have to be open to the following possibilities:

1b. There are poetry readings on other days of the week.

2b. We also have to keep in mind, that Zack's can offer half-price drink all day for some other reason besides poetry reading. Perhaps, Mondays is trivia day and all coffee is half off as well.

With that in mind let's eliminate:

A) Wednesday is the most common day on which Zack's offers half-priced coffee all day.

Perhaps every single Monday is poetry night. Or perhaps every Friday Zack's offers half-priced coffee.

B) Most free poetry readings given at Zack's are scheduled for Wednesdays.

Again, we do not know anything about the other days of the weeks. Even if Wed. is the most common day for poetry readings, if the number of poetry readings over the course of the week is greater than the number on Wed., we cannot make inference in (B).

C) Free poetry readings are scheduled on almost every day that Zack's offers half-priced coffee all day.

Refer to 2b: there can be other days that offer free poetry readings.

D) Zack's offers half-priced coffee all day on most if not all Wednesdays.

We know that Zack's has poetry readings on most Wed. Whenever it has poetry readings it has half-priced coffee. Therefore, it offers coffee most Wed. But what about the 'if not all' part? Remember, Zack's can offer half-price coffee for some other reason besides poetry readings. Perhaps, the Wed. in which there are no poetry readings, Zack's offers karaoke. And coffee is always half-off on karaoke nights. Therefore, it could be possible that Zack's offers half-priced drinks on all Wed. THE ANSWER

E) On some Wednesdays Zack's does not offer half-priced coffee all day.

This one is really tempting. But remember, just because Zack's doesn't have poetry readings on some Wed. doesn't mean that there isn't some alternate event in which coffee is also half-priced. So if Wed. is also Scrabble day, and on Scrabble day coffee drinks are half-priced all day, then we cannot infer (E).
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For those who are confused, “almost every” means most. And most means anywhere between 50.000001% and 100%. Given the information above, (E) doesn’t have to always be true, whereas (D) does

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Hi nightblade354

Please advise why A and B are wrong.

tapasgupta,

Zack's Coffeehouse schedules free poetry readings almost every Wednesday. Zack's offers half-priced coffee all day on every day that a poetry reading is scheduled.

Which one of the following can be properly inferred from the information above?

-- Inference questions have to be 100% true. If they are not 100% true, then it is not our answer.

(A) Wednesday is the most common day on which Zack's offers half-priced coffee all day -- How do we know this? It could be that every St. Patrick's day we get free coffee guaranteed. It could be that every Friday is free coffee day. We only talk about Wednesday, so we cannot make this statement and know it to be 100% true.

(B) Most free poetry readings given at Zack's are scheduled for Wednesdays -- We do not talk about other days, so this cannot be out answer.
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GMATNinjaTwo, gmat1393, GMATNinja, nightblade354 :- I'm not convinced on why we should eliminate B. It is nowhere stated in the question that we need to infer something about coffee. It is clearly stated that "Zack's Coffeehouse schedules free poetry readings almost every Wednesday.

B clearly says that "Most free poetry readings given at Zack's are scheduled for Wednesdays". This option correctly uses the word scheduled. (It actually happening or not is a separate discussion)

I agree we are not told about other days, and option B does the same, it specifically talks about wednesday & even the argument explicitly talks about wednesday when talking about Free Poetry sessions.

Manat, what if everyday has a poetry reading? Wednesday would then not have the majority of the readings. We cannot assume anything in general, but especially on inference questions.

Posted from my mobile device
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Thanks nightblade354 for your help on this one!
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