Logical reasoning PrepTest 104 · Section 4 · Question 17

Question prompt

The Green Ensemble, a Remaining source text redacted.
Why the credited answer is right

Credited answer: A

The notes below walk through why it fits the stem and how to eliminate the rest.

Argument or Facts

Facts

Valid or Flawed

NA

Question Type

Must Be True Questions

Stimulus Summary

Green Ensemble depends on sponsors
Even a single corporate sponsor withdrew support → Green Ensemble forced to disband
Ensemble operated this year and released a schedule for next year

Answer Anticipation

This stimulus has an element right in the middle that is going to be used to lead into the correct answer - that conditional statement. In Must be True questions - especially ones that ask us to find an answer representing a conclusion instead of just an inference - we’re looking for statements that allow inferences to be drawn, and conditional statements are at the top of that list.
The conditional here establishes that if any of the corporate sponsors for the Green Ensemble had withdrawn their support, then the Ensemble would have had to disband this year. However, they didn’t disband this year. Based on the contrapositive of the conditional, their failure to disband guarantees that none of the corporate sponsors withdrew their support.
Note that there’s a red herring here - the stimulus also says that the Ensemble has released a schedule next year. That may lead you to infer that they will continue to hold onto their corporate sponsorships next year. However, there are two issues there. First, the conditional is about “this year,” and so we can’t necessarily apply it to next year. Second, just because they’ve released a schedule doesn’t mean that they’ll end up carrying it out, so even if the conditional does apply, they still may need to disband before they can finish the schedule. Let’s avoid any trap answers about next year.

Answer choices

  1. A
    None of the Green Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice A matches the stem
    The Green Ensemble didn’t disband. If any of their corporate sponsors had withdrawn support, they would have disbanded. So we can conclude that none of them did - as this answer states, making it the correct answer.

  2. B
    Earlier this year the Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice B is not credited
    The Green Ensemble did release a schedule for next year, but that doesn’t imply that they think they’ll end up following through without disbanding (maybe they released it to put on a happy face!), let alone that they’ll actually have funding, let alone that the funding is from a different source than in the past.

  3. C
    During this year corporate Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice C is not credited
    The premises establish that the corporate sponsors didn’t withdraw their support, but that doesn’t guarantee that it increased.

  4. D
    This year corporate funding Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice D is not credited
    This is a tempting answer! However, the Green Ensemble could be financially dependent on, say, 3 sources evenly, only one of which is corporate sponsorship (making up 33% of their funding). That would still mean losing it causes them to close down, but it wouldn’t make up over half of their funding.

  5. E
    Corporate funding for nonprofit Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice E is not credited
    This answer is too broad. The stimulus is about only the Green Ensemble’s corporate funding, not corporate funding for nonprofit theater groups generally.

What this tests

Question analytics

Based on historical answer selection rates for this question.

Answer choice distribution

  1. A Credited 87%
  2. B 3%
  3. C 6%
  4. D 1%
  5. E 3%

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Discussion

  • C versus E 3 replies

    Started by paulahg

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