#14 - In 1712 the government of Country Y appointed a censor

[JKing]

Some of these I got right and I just need to make sure I am on the right path to getting them right. I hope this is not too much, if it is I can next time make these questions in different posts.

December Test 1998

LR Section 4

#14- I keep trying to visually see this and it always throws me off. I need an explanation on this one.

[Steve Stein]

Thanks for your question.

In this one, it's helpful to slightly change how the info is presented; instead of focusing on what the censors didn't approve, let's focus on what they did approve: The first censor approved half of the books submitted, and the second censor approved 3/4 of the books submitted.

Yet they approved the same number. What does that tell us, considering that the second censor approved most of the books that were submitted? The second censor must have considered fewer submissions.

A hypothetical might make it a bit more clear:

Censor One: 150 books submitted, half approved: 75 approvals
Censor Two: 100 books submitted, 3/4 approved: 75 approvals

I hope that's helpful! Please let me know--thanks!

~Steve

[JKing]

yup makes sense

[Steve Stein]

That's great--glad I could help!

~Steve

[jlam061695]

I am still confused about answer choice C? I will use a hypothetical to demonstrate what I mean:

If there are 12 book manuscripts submitted to the first censor and half of them were not approved, then that would mean that 6 of them were not approved. Let's just say that the other 6 got approved (even though there is nothing in the stimulus that says that this must be the case).

If there are 16 book manuscripts submitted to the second censor and only one quarter were not approved, then that would mean that 4 of them were not approved. And the 6 out of the remaining 12 were approved.

So this would mean that even though the same number of books were approved (6) under both censors, more book manuscripts could have been submitted for approved to the SECOND censor rather than the FIRST, which contradicts what answer choice C claims.

Correct me if I am wrong, but it seems to me as if the stimulus is making the assumption that if in a set of books, some of them were not approved, then the other ones all must be approved. This is not stated anywhere in the stimulus, which is why I am confused. What if the other ones were submitted but they got lost in the process of submission? What if they were still in review, and the status of them was uncertain?

[David Boyle]

I am still confused about answer choice C? I will use a hypothetical to demonstrate what I mean:

If there are 12 book manuscripts submitted to the first censor and half of them were not approved, then that would mean that 6 of them were not approved. Let's just say that the other 6 got approved (even though there is nothing in the stimulus that says that this must be the case).

If there are 16 book manuscripts submitted to the second censor and only one quarter were not approved, then that would mean that 4 of them were not approved. And the 6 out of the remaining 12 were approved.

So this would mean that even though the same number of books were approved (6) under both censors, more book manuscripts could have been submitted for approved to the SECOND censor rather than the FIRST, which contradicts what answer choice C claims.

Correct me if I am wrong, but it seems to me as if the stimulus is making the assumption that if in a set of books, some of them were not approved, then the other ones all must be approved. This is not stated anywhere in the stimulus, which is why I am confused. What if the other ones were submitted but they got lost in the process of submission? What if they were still in review, and the status of them was uncertain?

Hello jlam061695,

"And the 6 out of the remaining 12 were approved", you say. So what happened to the other 6?? --There's nothing in the stimulus that says there's any status but approved or non-approved. To imagine any other status, such as "got lost", may be unwarranted speculation, and overthinking what the stimulus says (or doesn't say).

Hope this helps,
David

[menkenj]

Working through this problem, I saw the trap of answer choice E and thought I would share in case it helps someone else.

E is wrong for a few reasons. The author never discussed the number of writers nor did they assume that each book is written by different authors. We could see authors write and submit multiple books under any given censor. Additionally, answer choice E discusses "unpublished" manuscripts while the stimulus gives us information about the number of unapproved submitted manuscripts. We can therefore say that E is also wrong because maybe there were a bunch of writers who wrote manuscripts but didn't submit them. We cannot know how many writers have unpublished works under either censor and we definitely cannot compare between the two censors.