#17 - Certain instruments used in veterinary surgery can be

[Christen Hammock]

Hi Tug,

Answer Choice (B) is right, and you're right that "each" is the key word. The stimulus says that it takes more energy for 50 complete sterilizations than it does to manufacture. That means that we can essentially divide by 50 to find the amount of energy it would take for a single sterilization. Although we don't know the actual numbers involved, dividing the number by 50 is definitely going to be less than dividing the number by 3.4.

Answer Choice (C) is wrong because we have no idea how many sets of instruments were sterilized and manufactured! We only know the amount of energy per 50 instruments.

[tug59567]

Ahhh, thank you for the explanation. I think the use of the plural (nylon instruments) also threw me off from answer choice B and caused my interpretation to shift to complete sterilization of all the instruments, instead of one.

Thanks again!

[deke97]

Hi I am having trouble understanding why B is the right answer to this question. My understanding of the stimulus is that 50 complete sterilizations of the nylon require 3.4 times more energy than used to manufacture it, so isn't the answer choice a direct contradiction of what the stimulus is saying because more energy was used to sterilize the nylon than to manufacture it? Also are A and D wrong because its comparing nylon to stainless steel which we can't do based on the information on the stimulus. E is wrong because we don't know enough information about price so it could be true. I felt that C was also wrong because they could've tested more than 50 objects but it just seemed the most right to me.

[Jeremy Press]

Hi deke,

You've put your finger on the problem here. Answer choice B is indeed a direct contradiction of what the stimulus is saying, which makes it the right answer to this question!

Notice the wording of the question stem, "each of the following could be true EXCEPT:." That means all of the answer choices could be true with one exception (so four answers, which are the wrong answers, all "could be true"). What's the one exception? It's the one answer that is the logical opposite of the others. The logical opposite of something that could be true is something that cannot be true (i.e. "could NOT be true"). So we're looking for the answer that cannot be true if the statements in the stimulus are true, which would be the answer that is a direct contradiction of the statements in the stimulus!

You've evaluated the other answer choices appropriately, and I'd just point out with answer choice C that we have no way of knowing either the exact or the comparative number of instruments (nylon or stainless steel) in the study. So answer choice C also could be true.

I hope this helps!

[deke97]

Wow thank you! I really need to read closer