#7 - Every adult male woolly monkey is larger than even the

[Adam Tyson]

Looks good, you got it! If a female is not dominated by a male, that male is not an adult. But maybe the female doesn't dominate that male, either, and they are equals? Good work!

[ameliashaffer]

I would like to follow up on the question asked above which noted that we are not supposed to infer that a male not dominating is equivalent to a female dominating. It does not mention so anywhere in the stimulus, so isn't it a possibility that neither male/female dominate each other?

[Chandler H]

I would like to follow up on the question asked above which noted that we are not supposed to infer that a male not dominating is equivalent to a female dominating. It does not mention so anywhere in the stimulus, so isn't it a possibility that neither male/female dominate each other?

Hi Amelia,

This is a tricky one! It would be possible that a non-adult male could come to a tie with a female, certainly. But it would not be possible for an adult male to tie with a female; we're told that any adult male will dominate any female.

Does that make sense?

[nshakfeh]

Hello,

I solved this problem a bit differently and wanted to check my thinking. I initially selected answer choice "C" for this problem, but realized the answer was "D" when I mapped out the problem in the following way:

Adult AND Male Smaller AND Female

This made me realize that size AND "age" were key (since it's an adult male that is larger than any adult female). With the contrapositive changing the "and" to "or," I was led to choose answer choice "D" instead.

Can you please advise?

Thanks!

[Adam Tyson]

Your diagram looks incorrect to me, nshakfeh. Using our standard approach to Conditional Reasoning, that diagram would be written out as "If (a wooly monkey is both) adult and male, then it is smaller and female." Obviously, that's not what the argument is saying! The males are larger, not smaller, and they are male, not female.

What you want is to say that if a wooly monkey is both adult and male, then it is LARGER than every female, and that it will dominate every female. So perhaps:

Adult + Male Larger + Dominate

Thus, if a wooly monkey is not larger than a female, or if it does not dominate a female, then it is not an adult or else not a male.

[nshakfeh]

I see. Thank you, Adam Tyson!