#5 - Everyone in Biba’s neighborhood is permitted to swim

[leejihyesarah]

Hi, I'm not sure if the question is relevant but here it goes:
I had problem defining "permitted"- I was unable to choose choice B because just because everyone in Biba's neighborhood is "permitted" to swim in the pool, doesn't guarantee that they will. With that being said, I wasn't sure that it was guaranteed that the pool would be open...
Could I have some help guiding my thinking? Thank you.

[Rachael Wilkenfeld]

Hi leejihyesarah,

That's a great job picking up the idea that just because something is permitted doesn't mean it's required. That should have made it easy to knock out at least answer choice (D).

One thing that should have stood out here is that everyone in the neighborhood is permitted to swim. Based on the swim times in the stimulus, only children over 6 are covered. There's a period of time for 6 and up, a period of time for only adults, but children under 6 are not addressed. They couldn't come during the periods already discussed, because those periods are already limited to other age groups. So if there are any children under 6 in the neighborhood, they must be allowed to swim at a different time. The times listed cover noon until close, so the only other time available would be in the morning.

Answer choice (B) describes that situation. There's a child in the neighborhood under 6. They would have to open the pool before noon to have a time when that child would be permitted to swim. The stimulus tells us there must be a time everyone in the neighborhood can swim. That means they must open at a time that allows swimming at the ages of anyone in the neighborhood. That doesn't mean that anyone actually shows up during those hours. It just means it's open and allowed.

Hope that helps!

[roesttezz]

Hi!

What made me stuck with answer B is that it is phrased in a way that makes it a condition of the neighbor having a six year old child for the pool to be open so I elimiated it. Can this be an approach to the question of this type and this is only an exception or it is it that I wrongly understood the option B?

[Luke Haqq]

Hi roesttezz!

I can understand why the wording of answer choice (B) makes it seem somewhat odd--after all, it seems like the pool's hours are what they are regardless of the age of somebody's child.

However, this involves a must be true question stem. With that type of question, many times the stimulus will have no conclusion but rather only several statements. And getting to the correct answer often involves manipulating the statements, such as taking contrapositives or chaining together conditional reasoning. So in some sense the correct answer choice makes sense in general given the question type--it's requiring one to think about conditional reasoning in the stimulus, which is likely to be tested if it's present on a must be true question.

Though it seems odd at first, that particular answer choice makes sense given the first sentence of the stimulus: "Everyone in Biba’s neighborhood is permitted to swim at Barton Pool at some time during each day that it is open." Effectively, this conveys the following conditional statement:

BN PS

If someone is in Biba's neighborhood, then that person is permitted to swim at Barton Pool at some point each day.

Answer choice (B) is a conditional statement that begins by referring to Biba's next-door neighbor's child who is under 6. It might seem like one doesn't know much or anything about this child, who isn't mentioned in the stimulus. But we do know that the child fits in the above conditional reasoning. The child is in Biba's neighborhood, so we know that the child is permitted to swim at Barton Pool at some point each day.

When could this child younger than 6 swim? The second sentence states that "No children under the age of 6 are permitted to swim at Barton Pool between noon and 5 P.M," so noon to 5 are out. We're also told that from 5 to close is reserved for adults. Thus we know that this child is permitted to swim at Barton Pool at some point each day, but not from noon until close. We can therefore infer that the child must be permitted to swim there at some point before noon, which, in turn, requires that the pool be open before noon.

[ashpine17]

can we infer that the pool IS open before noon? i was told by an instructor that i could not, but how is a child under 6 permitted to swim in the pool if the pool is closed before noon? (given the facts of the stimulus)

[ashpine17]

is it a NO because there might not be any kids under 6 in the neighborhood? then the pool doesn't have to be open

[Adam Tyson]

Correct. We cannot infer that the pool is open before noon unless we know that at least one child under the age of 6 lives in the neighborhood. If no such children live there, then everyone in the neighborhood could be permitted to swim at some point even if the pool is not open before noon.

[JNSIWL24]

Hi,
I want to confirm my understanding of this question.
I can see why “only” is the necessary indicator in statement#3,
but why is the necessary condition written as shown in the explanation above, for statement#1 & statement#2?

[Dana D]

Hi,

I'm not sure which conditional reasoning you are confused about from prior explanations, but I will break down each sentence of the stimulus and hopefully that helps.

MBT questions like this are giving us fact sets, and the correct answer must be something we can deduce from these facts.

Sentence one tells us that if you live in Biba's neighborhood you have a time you're allowed to swim.

Sentence 2 says between Noon and 5 pm No one under age 6 can swim

Sentence 3 says that from 5pm to close adults only can swim.

Because everyone in Biba's neighborhood has a time they are allowed to swim, we must either assume that these everyone who lives in the neighborhood is over the age of 6, and therefore has a time during which they are allowed to swim, or if there is someone under 6 then we must assume the pool is open before noon and the under 6 year old is allowed to swim during that time, since everyone who lives in the neighborhood is allowed to swim at some time and under the rules we were given, there is no time a 3/4/5 year old could go swimming.

[JNSIWL24]

Thanks so much Dana!! It helps and I see your point!