Monkton University has established a board that reviews all

Question

Monkton University has established a board that reviews all applications for experiments to be conducted by students or faculty. Researchers submit proposals to one or more committees of the board, each of which is responsible for certain research subjects, and the committees’ task is to ensure that the proposed research both complies with all laws and meets the university’s standards for ethical experimentation. A proposal must gain approval from all committees for which the research parameters apply.
 
Board members must sit on a minimum of one committee and a maximum of three; each committee must have a minimum of 5 members. Committee 1 must reach a unanimous vote in order to approve a proposal. Committees 2 and 3 may approve a proposal with no more than one “no” vote. Approval for Committee 4 requires a simple majority vote. 
 
Committee 1: humans (all ages)
Committee 2: all other animals (e.g., rats, worms)
Committee 3: all other living organisms (e.g., bacteria, plant matter)
Committee 4: research that does not involve living organismsThree proposals were recently approved by the applicable committees.
 
 1. A doctoral candidate was given permission to conduct a study on pain management in humans using medication as well as alternative techniques such as massage therapy and meditation.
 2. A zoology professor gained approval to conduct a series of studies on the swarming behaviors of various animals when predators are in the vicinity.
 3. A botany professor and her students received permission to catalog all living organisms native to a nearby nature preserve that usually does not grant access to people.
 
One proposal was rejected.
 4. An undergraduate student was refused permission to study the physiological effects of illegal drug use in human subjects.

Edskore · Answer

This is an MSR set, and the trap is entirely in reading the fine print on the voting rules, not in any tricky math.

1. Quick setup: Committee 1 (humans) needs a unanimous yes. Committees 2 and 3 (animals, other organisms) can lose at most one "no" vote. Committee 4 (non-living) just needs a simple majority. Every committee has a minimum of 5 members.

2. First set of statements. "The doctoral candidate's proposal was reviewed by committee 1" is true, since it's a human pain-management study and committee 1 always weighs in on anything involving humans.

3. "The undergrad's proposal was rejected because it failed ethical standards" is not provable. The passage says committees check both legal compliance and ethics, and we're never told which one the undergrad's drug study actually failed.

4. "The botany professor's proposal required approval from all four committees" is false. Cataloging organisms at a nature preserve hits committees 2 and 3 only, no humans, nothing non-living.

5. The numeric question asks the minimum yes votes for a study involving people and their pets, which needs committee 1 and committee 2. Minimum committee size is 5. Committee 1 unanimous means all 5 must vote yes. Committee 2 allows one no, so minimum yes there is 4. Add them: 5 + 4 = 9.

6. Second set of statements. "At least two people rejected the undergrad's proposal" isn't provable, unanimous approval means even one no vote sinks it.

7. "The botany professor's proposal got at least 8 yes votes" is true, since it needed committees 2 and 3 to pass, each requiring at least 4 yes votes at minimum size, and it was actually approved.

8. "A minimum of 4 yes votes is required for non-living research" is false, committee 4 only needs a simple majority, and a majority of a 5-person committee is 3.

The trap is treating "no more than one no vote" and "simple majority" like the same threshold. They're not, and mixing them up is how people blow the vote-count question.

Takeaway: on MSR logic sets, go slow on the voting rules before touching the specific scenarios, that's where the real work is.

parthk24 · Answer

Can someone please explain how the answer to Q.2 isn't 5?

The passage mentions that  "Board members must sit on a minimum of one committee and a maximum of three; each committee must have a minimum of 5 members."  Can't this imply that the same 5 board members could be on Committee 1 & 2?

Appreciate if someone could point out the flaw in reasoning, thanks!

Rishab2409 · Answer

Hello - The question says talks about " people ages 5 to 65 and their animal pets ", which means we are referring both Committee 1 and 2. For committee 1 we require unanimous votes, that is all must vote in favour, i.e., 5 votes and for committee 2 we can have only 1 NO, which means we need minimum 4 voters. Hence minimum number of YES is 9 (5+4).

Regarding the Board members query, the question means that each board member must mandatorily be a part of 1 committee while the ceiling limit per member is 3 committees. Even if there are same members in both the committee, we need to focus on the question stem which is asking for the minimum number of 'yes votes' required for the research. Our focus here is not the similarity in the voters, but the 'yes votes' given by the committee for the approval of the research.

egmat · Answer

Hi parthk24,

Good instinct to test whether the committees could share members, but the fix is in  what the question is counting . It asks for the minimum number of  "yes" votes , not the minimum number of  people .

Why membership overlap doesn't help you here

Even if you're right that the same  5  board members could sit on both Committee  1  and Committee  2 , that doesn't collapse the two votes into one. Each committee conducts its  own separate vote  on the proposal, with its  own threshold :

-  Committee 1 (humans):  unanimous - all members must vote yes. With  5  members, that's  5  yes votes.
-  Committee 2 (animals/pets):  approves with at most one "no." With  5  members, that's  4  yes votes.

So a single board member who sits on both committees casts a vote in  each  committee's decision - once in the Committee  1  vote, once in the Committee  2  vote. The proposal has to clear  both  approvals, so those yes votes are tallied separately and added:  5 + 4 = 9 . That's answer  D .

The overlap you spotted changes  who  the people are, but not  how many yes votes  the two approvals require.

A tiny stand-in to feel it

Imagine one person, Sam, serves as both the treasurer and the secretary of a club. A motion needs a yes from the treasurer  and  a yes from the secretary to pass. Sam still has to say "yes"  twice  - once wearing each hat. That's  two  yes votes recorded, even though it's one person.

Same logic here: two committees, two separate votes, so the yes votes stack even with full membership overlap.

Answer: D

ArmaanBajaj · Answer

Why is Q3.2 'true'? Isn't a botany professor only concerned with 'all living organisms' that only pertains to committee 3, also, since it's botany, animals shouldn't ideally be incl. for their committee

egmat · Answer

Hi ArmaanBajaj,

I can see exactly where this is tripping you up. You're reading the professor's  field  (botany) as if it defined the  scope of her study . But the two aren't the same thing here.

Go back to Tab 2 (Approved Studies), proposal 3:  the botany professor and her students got permission to  "catalog all living organisms native to a nearby nature preserve."  The key phrase is  "all living organisms"  - not just plants. A nature preserve's living inhabitants include rats, worms, insects, birds, and so on, right alongside the plants and bacteria.

Now cross-reference that with Tab 1 (Review Board), where the committee scopes are defined:

-  Committee 2: all other animals  (e.g., rats, worms)
-  Committee 3: all other living organisms  (e.g., bacteria, plant matter)

Since the catalog covers  animals , it triggers  Committee 2 ; since it also covers  plants/bacteria , it triggers  Committee 3 . The rule in Tab 1 is that a proposal must gain approval from  every  committee whose parameters apply - so both committees are in play, not just Committee 3.

From there the vote math follows: each committee has  at least 5 members  and can approve with  no more than one "no,"  so each contributes  at least 4  yes votes. Across the two committees that's  4 + 4 = 8  - which is why statement (2) is  Yes .

The thing to internalize:  who is running the study doesn't decide the committees - what the study covers does.  "Botany professor" is just her title; "all living organisms" is the actual subject matter, and that reaches into the animal committee too.

Quick gut-check: if a  zoology  professor proposed cataloging "all living organisms" in that same preserve, she'd hit Committees  2and3  for the very same reason - plants are in her catalog even though she's a zoologist. Scope drives the committees, every time.

Answer: No, Yes, No

Yes	No
		The doctoral candidate’s proposal was reviewed by committee 1.
		The undergraduate student’s proposal was rejected because it failed to meet the university’s ethical standards.
		The botany professor’s proposal required approval from all four committees.

Yes	No
		At least two people rejected the undergraduate student’s proposal.
		The botany professor’s proposal received at least 8 “yes” votes.
		A minimum of 4 “yes” votes is required for any research that does not involve living organisms.

Monkton University has established a board that reviews all

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