Statement - Conclusions Questions and Answers

Answer: A

Only conclusion II follows. The statements are: all dogs are birds, and all birds are goats. Joining them gives all dogs are goats. Since there is at least one dog in the statement, some goats must be dogs, which is conclusion II (the converse of an 'all' statement gives 'some').

Conclusion I, 'all goats are dogs', would need the goats to be no larger a group than the dogs. The statements say the dogs are only a part of the birds, which are themselves a part of the goats, so there can be goats that are not dogs. Conclusion I does not follow. Because II follows and I does not, the answer is 'Only conclusion II follows'.

Answer: A

Only conclusion I follows.

All floors are gates, and no gate is a window, so no floor can be a window. That is exactly conclusion I. Conclusion II says some floors are windows, which directly contradicts it, so II cannot follow.

Because I is certain and II is false, the 'either I or II' and 'neither' options are wrong as well. Only the first option is correct.

Drawing it helps: circle 'floors' inside the circle 'gates' and keep the circle 'windows' fully outside 'gates'. The floor circle is then also outside the window circle, so no floor is a window. A statement that two sets overlap, as in II, cannot be drawn without breaking this picture.

Answer: C

Conclusions I and II follow.

All papers are pens and some pens are markers; all markers are whiteners. Since some pens are markers and all markers are whiteners, those pens are whiteners, so some whiteners are pens (I). 'Some pens are markers' can be turned round to 'some markers are pens' (II). Nothing joins papers to whiteners directly, because the pens that are markers need not be the pens that are papers, so III does not follow.

Hence only I and II follow.

A diagram makes the conclusions clear: papers inside pens, markers overlapping pens, and markers entirely inside whiteners. The overlap of pens and markers lies inside the whiteners, so some whiteners are pens. Papers are inside pens, but no link joins papers to markers, so papers and whiteners need not meet.

Answer: A

Only conclusion III follows. Statements A and B chain together as ducks ⊂ cats ⊂ lions, so every duck is a lion, which is exactly conclusion III. Conclusion I says no lion is a cat, but statement B makes every cat a lion, so there are lions that are cats (the cats themselves), and I is false. Conclusion II says no cat is a duck, but statement A makes every duck a cat, so some cats are ducks, and II is false. Statement C, that some lions are jungles, links to nothing else and decides none of the three conclusions. Only III is left, which is the first option.

Answer: B

The answer is III only.

Statement I does not follow: the facts say humans are mammals and engineers build houses, but nothing makes every mammal an engineer or a builder. Statement II does not follow either: some humans are engineers, but the facts never say that every engineer is human, so engineers as a class need not be mammals.

Statement III is taken to follow from Fact 2 read in its everyday sense: saying that some humans are engineers implies that not all of them are, so some humans are not engineers. (In strict syllogistic logic 'some' does not exclude 'all', which is why this question is sometimes argued; the key adopts the everyday reading.) The options containing I or II are therefore wrong.

Answer: A

The appropriate inference is there is a strong correlation between crow birth and cracker sales.

The two series move together year by year: flat from 2002 to 2004, a spike in 2005 and a fall afterwards. That is a strong correlation. But the question itself says the studies are unrelated, and nothing in the data shows a mechanism linking crows and crackers.

So the data support only the statement of correlation. Saying crackers increase crow births, or that crow births cause cracker sales, claims causation, and predicting that a fall in cracker sales will reduce crow births assumes the same causal link. Correlation alone does not establish any of these.

Answer: D

Statements (i), (ii) and (iii) follow.

If "Some human beings are not cruel creatures" is false, then there is no human being who is not cruel, so all human beings are cruel creatures (i). Human beings exist in this world, so it follows that some human beings are cruel (ii), and, turning the same fact round, some cruel creatures are human beings (iii).

Statement (iv), "No human beings are cruel creatures", is the direct contradiction of (i), so any option containing (iv) is wrong. Options listing only (i), or only (i) and (ii), are incomplete because (iii) follows just as surely.

Answer: D

The valid inference is Linguistic pluralism is strong evidence of India’s diversity.

'If this is not an indication of the nation's diversity, nothing else is' is an emphatic way of saying that the many languages on the notes are among the strongest signs of diversity. That supports the claim that linguistic pluralism is strong evidence of it.

'At least seventeen' rules out 'exactly seventeen languages'. The passage does not say language is the only indicator, only a very strong one. And nothing is said about whether the notes have room for all Indian languages.

Answer: B

The correct inference is Ramya did not know that Josephine was in the hospital.

'Even if I had known ... I would not have gone' is a counterfactual conditional: the past perfect 'had known' describes a situation that did not happen. Ramya is saying that she did not know, and that knowing would not have changed her decision.

So 'Ramya knew' contradicts the grammar of the sentence. The other two options go beyond what was said: nothing in it mentions a past friendship or the reason Josephine was in hospital, and the question asks for an inference based only on the conversation.

Answer: A

The two statements that cannot both be true are Statement 1 and Statement 3.

'All students are inquisitive' and 'No student is inquisitive' are contraries: with at least one student in the class, that student would have to be both inquisitive and not inquisitive.

The other pairs can hold together. If all students are inquisitive, then some students are inquisitive too, so 1 and 2 are compatible. 'Some are' and 'some are not' are both true in a mixed class, so 2 and 4 are compatible. If no student is inquisitive, then certainly some students are not, so 3 and 4 are compatible.