Deriving Conclusions from Passages Questions and Answers

Answer: B

Correct answer: Only conclusion II follows

The statement credits the Industrial Revolution with bringing about the modern age - a revolution that remade society.

• II - follows. That is a general form of the same claim: revolution overhauls society.
• I - does not follow. The statement says nothing about what causes revolutions. Disparity between rich and poor is never mentioned, and a cause cannot be inferred from an effect.

Answer: A

Correct answer: Only conclusion I follows

Unlike in the past is doing the work here. Modern man shapes his destiny by the choice he makes, and that is said to distinguish him from earlier man - so earlier man had less to choose from.

• I - follows. Fewer options is exactly what the contrast asserts.
• II - does not follow. The statement contrasts the availability of choice, not the desire for it. Wanting to influence one’s destiny and being able to are different things.

Answer: A

Correct answer: Only conclusion I follows

The proverb says fortune favours the brave - good outcomes go to those willing to take risks.

• I - follows. If fortune attaches to bravery, then risk-taking is needed for success.
• II - does not follow. This is a separate saying about cowards, and the statement makes no claim about what happens to them. Praising one group does not describe the fate of the other.

Answer: D

Correct answer: Neither I nor II follows

Only one fact is given: prices are rising.

• I - does not follow. Scarcity is one possible cause of a price rise, but so are transport costs, taxes, hoarding and higher demand. A cause cannot be picked out from the effect alone.
• II - does not follow. Expensive is not the same as unaffordable, and cannot eat is an absolute the statement nowhere supports.

Answer: A

Correct answer: Only conclusion I follows

If no country is absolutely self-dependent, then not one of them manages to supply everything it needs - and a fact true without exception points to something inherent rather than accidental.

• I - follows. That is the inference: producing all one needs is not achievable.
• II - does not follow. Laziness is a moral explanation the statement never offers, and it would not account for a condition that holds for every country alike.

Answer: B

Correct answer: Only conclusion II follows

The epigram’s force lies in we have to alter it every six months - the public will not stay with a style, and demands something new twice a year.

• II - follows. Constant demand for change is susceptibility to novelty.
• I - does not follow. The designers are in fact responding to the public mind very accurately by changing what they offer so often; the statement blames the appetite, not the people serving it.

Answer: B

Correct answer: Only conclusion II follows

The statement says survival and prosperity are almost impossible without sacrificing ethics and morality.

• II - follows. If getting on in the world requires setting them aside, then in practice they cannot be lived by, which is what conclusion II asserts.
• I - does not follow. Whether the world appreciates these concepts is not addressed. The statement reports what the world demands, not what it admires.