Q12 - Many nurseries sell fruit trees

[ohthatpatrick]

What does the Question Stem tell us?
Inference (Must be true)

Break down the Stimulus:
Scanning for Conditional / Causal / Comparative / Quantitative claims. There is a 'many', a 'not all', and a 'some'. None of those can combine to make a quantity inference. The last sentence is a conditional: Not suitable for tub or pot --> a tree can't be correctly labeled "mini"

Any prephrase?
There's no clear direction that this is headed. None of the facts provided allow us to apply the conditional rule. We know the SSM tree is labeled a "mini", but we don't know whether it's suitable for a tub or pot.

Answer choice analysis:
A) "most" is extreme. We don't know anything about 51% or more of nurseries.

B) "only if" is extreme. Does this conditional match what we had? Correctly labeled --> unsuitable for tub or pot. No.

C) "Any" is extreme. Does this conditional match what we had? SSM nectarine tree labeled "mini" --> labeled incorrectly. We would only know this if we knew that SSM nectarine trees were 'unsuitable for tub/pot'.

D) Do we have a way to prove that something SHOULD be labeled "mini"? No. Only a rule that says something should NOT be labeled "mini".

E) "unless" is extreme. Does this match what we had? If SSM is unsuitable for tub/pot, then some SSM's are being mislabeled. Do we know if any nurseries label SSM "mini"? Yes we do.


The correct answer is E.

Takeaway/Pattern: "Unless" = if not. And when an Inference stimulus includes a conditional statement, we are normally tested on whether we can apply it so specific facts, contrapose it, or chain it together with other conditional statements.

#officialexplanation

[lhermary]

Why is E right here?

Thanks

[ymcho2013]

Could you confirm if this is the reasoning for eliminating answer choice B?

B) some SSM correctly labeled --> NOT suitable p/t
but according to the last sentence, if something is correctly labeled, then it SHOULD be suitable.

So therefore B's necessary statement does not match the necessary statement of the conditional given in the stimulus.

Any thoughts?

[pridefc]

Could you confirm if this is the reasoning for eliminating answer choice B?

B) some SSM correctly labeled --> NOT suitable p/t
but according to the last sentence, if something is correctly labeled, then it SHOULD be suitable.

So therefore B's necessary statement does not match the necessary statement of the conditional given in the stimulus.

Any thoughts?

Passage states: labeled miniture --> stable for pot...

(B) states: labeled (correctly) miniture --> (unsuitable) not stable for pot...

So yes, that is how I eliminated (B).

[JosephV]

Hi.

Could someone, please, confirm for me (or disprove) that we can chain the third and fourth sentences this way:

SSM <---some---> labelled miniature ----> tub/pot

which would imply that

SSM <---some---> tub/pot.

Thank you.

[christine.defenbaugh]

Hey JosephV, thanks for posting!

While I appreciate the desire to chain things together, I think it's super dangerous here, and leaves you making an incorrect connection. Let's walk through why:

SSM <---some---> labelled miniature

This looks like a totally reasonable shorthand for the third sentence.

labelled miniature ----> tub/pot

The above shorthand for the the fourth sentence is problematic, though. At a glance it might look okay, but it's dropped out a really critical piece of information. The last sentence didn't say simply that if something is labeled miniature then it's suitable for a tub/pot. It said that if something were correctly labeled miniature, then it would be suitable for a tub/pot!

That idea totally changes the conditional. As such, the 'labeled miniature' from the 'some' statement and the 'labeled miniature' from the conditional are NOT the same item, and thus cannot connected in the simply way you put forward. The conditional should really be shorthanded as:

correctly labelled miniature ----> tub/pot

Now, if all those SSM-mini labels are correct, then you could do what you're trying to do. But we don't know that they are!

Does that help clear things up a bit?

[JosephV]

Thanks Christine,

Although initially I was cognizant of the "correct" detail, my logic nevertheless failed somewhere along the way. Your explanation clears it up. Thanks.