PrepTest 143

Incorrect. While the description of Baxe as "one of the largest" design companies suggests there are others, there's no way to know how their designs compare to Baxe's. Baxe having a near monopoly might not be a factor of quality—it may be a factor of pricing, or their sales team.

Incorrect. The stimulus doesn't discuss other areas, and the statement about Baxe's dominance of the corporate market doesn't suggest that it's limited to that.

Incorrect. While "[s]everal" small companies have won awards for their work, there's no indication that this is true for "most" of the work done by these small companies.

Incorrect. First, there's no way to know that the designs are "much better"—each of those awards could have seen Baxe in close second. Second, these corporate managers are said to consider companies based on likelihood of bankruptcy, so they could very well be aware of better designs out there while prioritizing a partner they believe to have more stability.

Correct. Argument or Facts:
Facts

Question Type:
Must Be True

Stimulus Summary:
Baxe—Near monopoly, no awards for corporate work
Several small design companies—Awards for their corporate work
Corporate design contract → Companies they believe won't go bankrupt
Companies they believe won't go bankrupt → Very large company

Answer Anticipation:
This stimulus features a comparison between Baxe Interiors and smaller design companies, and some conditional rules about how corporations make decisions as to which design companies they contract with. Let's start with the conditionals, as we know some hard-and-fast rules as to how to work with those.

The conditionals are a little tricky with how they're phrased, but hopefully by slowing down and working through them, you got the same diagrams as we have in our summary. From there, we can see that the two conditionals chain together, so let's do so and take the contrapositive:

Corporate design contract → Won't go bankrupt → Very large company

not Very large company → not Won't go bankrupt → not Corporate design contract

From this, we can see that the small design companies won't get these design contracts. And if we want to pull all the statements together and get an inference that sums everything up, we can say that the awards won by these small companies isn't enough to dislodge contracts from Baxe Interiors.

Answer Explanation:
Small design companies are sucking up the prestigious awards, while Baxe has none. These better designs, however, don't threaten Baxe in the corporate space because those corporations make decisions based on likelihood of bankruptcy, not design. This answer is supported and brings essentially the whole stimulus together, so this is the correct answer.

Key Takeaway:
Comparisons, conditionals, causality, and strong statements are the types of statements most likely to lead to inferences in Must Be True questions. When you see any of these, you should focus on them and see what inferences you can draw.