#24 - Good students learn more than what their parents and

[Administrator]

Complete Question Explanation

Cannot Be True—SN. The correct answer choice is (B)

The stimulus in this problem contains a set of interrelated conditional statements:

• GS = good student
  LM = learn more than what their parents and teachers compel them to learn
  DP = derive pleasure from the satisfaction of their curiosity
  CC = capable of concentrating on a topic so intently that one loses track of one’s own identity
  
  1. First sentence: GS LM
  
  2. Second sentence, first part: LM DP
  
  3. Second sentence, second part: DP CC
  
  
  Chain of all statements: GS LM DP CC

Remember, when you encounter Cannot Be True questions featuring conditional relationships, actively seek the answer that violates the precept that when the sufficient condition occurs the necessary condition must also occur. In this problem, that situation is found in answer choice (B).

Answer choice (A): This answer describes a situation where the necessary condition in the second part of the second sentence occurs and the sufficient condition does not. Since the occurrence of the necessary condition does not make the sufficient condition occur, this scenario could happen and this answer is therefore incorrect. This type of answer is a frequent wrong answer in Cannot Be True questions featuring conditional relationships.

Answer choice (B): This is the correct answer choice. The chain of statements in the stimulus shows that every good student derives pleasure from the satisfaction of their curiosity. Thus, it cannot be true that “Most good students do not derive pleasure from the satisfaction of their curiosity.”

Answer choice (C): Like answer choice (A), this answer describes a situation where the necessary condition occurs and the sufficient condition does not. This time the scenario references the relationship in the first sentence.

Answer choice (D): The stimulus only offers information about good students; no information is given about people who are not good students. Accordingly, we can make no judgment about these individuals, and the answer is incorrect.

Answer choices that offer groups that do not meet the sufficient condition are also popular wrong answers in Cannot Be True questions featuring conditional reasoning.

Answer choice (E): Like answer choices (A) and (C), this answer describes a situation where the necessary condition occurs and the sufficient condition does not. Unlike those two answers, you must rely on your understanding of the chain of all statements in order to understand why this answer is possible. Because the “capable of becoming so absorbed in a topic that they lose track of their own identities” is the necessary condition for being a good student, it is possible that most people who meet this condition are still not good students. Again, avoid Mistaken Reversals!

Overall, Cannot Be True questions appear infrequently but they can be troublesome because of their unusual information structure. Whenever you encounter a Cannot question, focus on searching for the answer that cannot follow or the answer that is disproved by the stimulus.

[Tiffany]

Hi,

I have a question with the diagramming of the answer choices in this question.

I thought that people who is a sufficient condition indicator. With this in mind, I diagrammed answer choice A as CC DP~.

For answer choice C, I diagrammed it as DP GS~ and so on for both D and E.

Apparently the solution did not apply this thinking so I am not sure why this thinking is inapplicable here. If not, what should I do when I encounter answer choices with a similar wording in the future? Thank you!

[Malila Robinson]

Hi Tiffany,
The way you diagrammed the answer choices is correct. The solution above is just going into a deeper explanation for why we can't automatically call a Mistaken Reversal/Mistaken Negation a correct answer on a Cannot Be True question. Those answer choices may not be true, but they do not necessarily rise to the level of cannot be true.
Hope that helps!
-Malila

[Tiffany]

Thanks for your reply!

We have eliminated D based on the fact that it has a group which does not meet the sufficient condition. But, wouldn't people who are "not good students" be a logical opposite of people who are "good students"? which could be used to form a contrapositive of the original statement?

Also, I notice that all of the answers have got "some", "most" or "many" attached to them. Should I take into account these terms when diagramming the answer choices?

Thank you!

[James Finch]

Hi Tiffany,

Yes, as "Good Students" is purely a sufficient condition in this conditional chain, "Good Students" will be a purely necessary condition. Knowing only a necessary condition tells us nothing about the other conditions, so they are all still possible. It's only when we know a sufficient condition that we can say anything with certainty; as we are being asked what cannot be true in this question, we need to have that certainty and thus be given a sufficient condition that then leads to a necessary condition which breaks with what our chain tells us.

(B) does this, as it gives us GS DP, whereas the stimulus tells us that GS DP. But (D) says GS Derive Pleasure from Losing Track of Identity, which is possible for two reasons: as above, GS is a necessary condition in the stimulus and can't tell us anything about any of the other conditions, and that the other condition given is actually different from any of the ones given in the stimulus, combining elements of the last two conditions given to create something entirely new. So as it's not something even mentioned by the stimulus, it of course could be possible.

Hope this clears things up!