Q24 - Legal commentator: The goal of a recently

[noah]

This is an inference question. Here we're asked what we can infer must not be true (false). It's equivalent to a question asking "Each of the following could be true EXCEPT."

In this question we learn two things:

1. The goal of a new law banning smoking at work is to protect employees.

2. It's written in a way that it cannot prohibit smoking at home.

Notice how much stronger the second statement is.

We know that (E) is false because folks working in a home are working where the law cannot prohibit smoking. So, the law will not protect them (regardless of the goal). Thus, (E) is our answer.

(A) is out of scope - and so thus could be true. We know nothing of the legislators' intentions.

(B) is similar to (A) - we don't know about the supporters' beliefs.

(C) is unsupported. It might be true that the law only affects workplaces.

(D) is totally possible, totally out of scope.

Easy question if you could keep a handle on that tricky question stem!


#officialexplanation

[jennifer]

What type of question is this? I have never seen anything like this before. What category of question types would you put this into? Thank you.

[shirando21]

This is an inference question. Here we're asked what we can infer must not be true (false). It's equivalent to a question asking "Each of the following could be true EXCEPT."

In this question we learn two things:

1. The goal of a new law banning smoking at work is to protect employees.

2. It's written in a way that it cannot prohibit smoking at home.

Notice how much stronger the second statement is.

We know that (E) is false because folks working in a home are working where the law cannot prohibit smoking. So, the law will not protect them (regardless of the goal). Thus, (E) is our answer.

(A) is out of scope - and so thus could be true. We know nothing of the legislators' intentions.

(B) is similar to (A) - we don't know about the supporters' beliefs.

(C) is unsupported. It might be true that the law only affects workplaces.

(D) is totally possible, totally out of scope.

Easy question if you could keep a handle on that tricky question stem!

you mean the second sentence overides the first one?

is C consistent with the argument?

[noah]

you mean the second sentence overrides the first one?

is C consistent with the argument?[/quote]
In a sense, the second sentence does override the first--though the first one is still stands after (E) arrives because the first sentence simply says that banning smoking in the workplace is a "goal."

As for (C) being consistent with the argument, something being "consistent" with some rule means that that thing doesn't contradict the rule (or is not prohibited by it). So, any of the wrong answers to this question are consistent with the stimulus, since it's only the correct answer which can be rejected based on the stimulus.

[shirando21]

now I understand C is unsupported. Merci~

[cverdugo]

I had some trouble with the question stem! Here's my breakdown:

The goal of recently enacted law that bans smoking in workplaces is to protect employees from 2ndhand smoke.

But the law is written in such a way that it cannot be interpreted as ever prohibiting people from smoking in their own homes.

As I was doing this question, I didn't make a prediction and the question stem through me for a loop. Typing it out I see that the main question I should have seen was, what about people who work in homes? I need to start focusing in on each part of the stimulus and ask myself why are they telling me this piece of info. I rushed into the answer choices and found myself more confused.

Answer Choices:

(A) I initially chose A during my timed PT, I didn't really understand the Question Type so I felt somehow this addressed the issue with this stimulus. On review I can see that we know nothing about the what the intentions of the legislator were. Obviously the second sentence was written to specifically say that had some kind of consistent idea when writing the law that they wanted to follow about homes.

(B) I threw this one out quick, couldn't really reject we know nothing about what they think it will impact maybe they don't care about health, maybe they don't like the way it looks when people smoke at work?

(C) Hmmm this seemed like a trap answer, I threw it out because it is just out of scope. We cant possibly know if this is true or false

(D) We don't know what most people think and if this was true, we really couldn't reject it because the law was written to support this idea

(E) The correct answer. On review I read this answer out loud as a house cleaner who was questioning the stimulus. It has to be rejected, the second sentence states that it cannot be interpreted as EVER prohibiting people from smoking in their own home. But wait I work in homes? Yeah, exactly no protection for you.