Critical Reasoning

Shipping Clerk: The five specially ordered shipments sent out last week were sent out on Thursday. Last week, all of the shipments that were sent out on Friday consisted entirely of building supplies, and the shipping department then closed for the weekend. Four shipments were sent to Truax Construction last week, only three of which consisted of building supplies.

If the shipping clerk’s statements are true, which of the following must also be true?
A. At least one of the shipments sent to Truax Construction last week was specially ordered.
B. At least one of last week’s specially ordered shipments did not consist of building supplies.
C. At least one of the shipments sent to Truax Construction was not sent out on Thursday of last week.
D. At least one of the shipments that were sent out on Friday of last week was sent to Truax Construction.
E. At least one of the shipments sent to Truax Construction last week was sent out before Friday.


OA is E but I feel that answer is C. Any ideas?

It is really tough one,
I feel whether it contain scope-shift.

dartz wrote:Shipping Clerk: The five specially ordered shipments sent out last week were sent out on Thursday. Last week, all of the shipments that were sent out on Friday consisted entirely of building supplies, and the shipping department then closed for the weekend. Four shipments were sent to Truax Construction last week, only three of which consisted of building supplies.

If the shipping clerk’s statements are true, which of the following must also be true?
A. At least one of the shipments sent to Truax Construction last week was specially ordered.
B. At least one of last week’s specially ordered shipments did not consist of building supplies.
C. At least one of the shipments sent to Truax Construction was not sent out on Thursday of last week.
D. At least one of the shipments that were sent out on Friday of last week was sent to Truax Construction.
E. At least one of the shipments sent to Truax Construction last week was sent out before Friday.

OA is E but I feel that answer is C. Any ideas?

E clearly stands out.. dept. was closed on the weekend. friday all are building supplies.. so the 4th shipment must have happened before friday..

dartz wrote:Shipping Clerk: The five specially ordered shipments sent out last week were sent out on Thursday. Last week, all of the shipments that were sent out on Friday consisted entirely of building supplies, and the shipping department then closed for the weekend. Four shipments were sent to Truax Construction last week, only three of which consisted of building supplies.

If the shipping clerk’s statements are true, which of the following must also be true?
A. At least one of the shipments sent to Truax Construction last week was specially ordered.
B. At least one of last week’s specially ordered shipments did not consist of building supplies.
C. At least one of the shipments sent to Truax Construction was not sent out on Thursday of last week.
D. At least one of the shipments that were sent out on Friday of last week was sent to Truax Construction.
E. At least one of the shipments sent to Truax Construction last week was sent out before Friday.


OA is E but I feel that answer is C. Any ideas?

Yes indeed answer is C, check it again, I just came across this question today...it is C, but different choice:

None of the shipments sent by ComCrop to taurax construction last week was specially ordered.

It should be E

Truax construction--- 4 shipments ---- 3 building supplies

Building supplies sent on friday that means 1 to 3 building supplies shipments were sent to Truax on friday and the remaining before friday

If all of the truax shipments had been specially ordered, then also they must have been shipped on thursday.

Option E says atleast one of the shipments was sent before friday- correct

dartz wrote:Shipping Clerk: The five specially ordered shipments sent out last week were sent out on Thursday. Last week, all of the shipments that were sent out on Friday consisted entirely of building supplies, and the shipping department then closed for the weekend. Four shipments were sent to Truax Construction last week, only three of which consisted of building supplies.

If the shipping clerk’s statements are true, which of the following must also be true?
A. At least one of the shipments sent to Truax Construction last week was specially ordered.
B. At least one of last week’s specially ordered shipments did not consist of building supplies.
C. At least one of the shipments sent to Truax Construction was not sent out on Thursday of last week.
D. At least one of the shipments that were sent out on Friday of last week was sent to Truax Construction.
E. At least one of the shipments sent to Truax Construction last week was sent out before Friday.


OA is E but I feel that answer is C. Any ideas?

A tough one, indeed! But after guessing the answer and finding that it matched with the OA, I have thought of a simpler way to solve this problem.

Although the clerk is talking only about Thursday and Friday, let us not forget about the other working days of the week! We are not told that the office works only on the two days. Also, specially ordered shipments and building materials need not be disjoint sets. So, building materials can be sent by specially ordered shipments also.

Now let us see what all we can find out from the passage. All 5 specially ordered shipments were sent on Thursday. But some general shipments may also have been sent out on that day.

All the shipments sent out on Friday consisted of building supplies. They may have been sent by general or specially ordered shipments.

4 shipments were sent to T. Co. last week and among these four 3 contained building materials. So, these shipments may have been sent on any day of the week.

A. "At least one of the shipments sent to Truax Construction last week was specially ordered." This would be true if all shipments except building materials are specially ordered. But the passage does not say so. So, neglect this.

B. "At least one of last week’s specially ordered shipments did not consist of building supplies." There is no information regarding this in the passage.

C. "At least one of the shipments sent to Truax Construction was not sent out on Thursday of last week." This would be true if building materials are never sent through specially ordered shipments and the office works only two days of the week. But that is not mentioned in the passage.

D. "At least one of the shipments that were sent out on Friday of last week was sent to Truax Construction." Again this would be true if the office were open only on those two days.

E. "At least one of the shipments sent to Truax Construction last week was sent out before Friday." Of the four shipments sent to T. Co. one consisted of non-building material. Since only building materials were sent on Friday, thus the other shipment must have been sent on some other day of the week and that day has to be before Friday, because the office was closed after that.

I am afraid, this is a long explanation! But I hope it will help anyone who is in dilemma.

I first had a glance at all the answer choices and the last option seemed to be the least controversial. My thought process was similar to kiranlegend. So, I simply opted for (E).

definitely E.

There were four shipments for Truax Construction, three of which were building supplies and one was not. Since all Friday shipments were building supplies, one remaining shipment for Truax Construction must have been sent before Friday. E is the only solution which can be true.


C'mon guys this wasn't difficult at all, got it in less then two minutes

I got it in 1 minute 41 seconds

Truax Construction shipment consisted of 3 building supplies and one non-building supplies
shipping clerk has given data of friday and thursday only

C. possible that shipment was sent on other days. but there is no supportng data in the arg

E
if 3 building supplies are sent on friday, one building supply need to be sent on any day except friday(arg states that only building supply WERE Sent on friday)
if no material is sent on friday, then any other day of the week the supply msut have been sent

E holds true in both cases

dartz wrote:Shipping Clerk: The five specially ordered shipments sent out last week were sent out on Thursday. Last week, all of the shipments that were sent out on Friday consisted entirely of building supplies, and the shipping department then closed for the weekend. Four shipments were sent to Truax Construction last week, only three of which consisted of building supplies.

If the shipping clerk�s statements are true, which of the following must also be true?
A. At least one of the shipments sent to Truax Construction last week was specially ordered.
B. At least one of last week�s specially ordered shipments did not consist of building supplies.
C. At least one of the shipments sent to Truax Construction was not sent out on Thursday of last week.
D. At least one of the shipments that were sent out on Friday of last week was sent to Truax Construction.
E. At least one of the shipments sent to Truax Construction last week was sent out before Friday.


OA is E but I feel that answer is C. Any ideas?

Shipping Clerk: The five specially ordered shipments sent out last week were sent out on Thursday. Last week, all of the shipments that were sent out on Friday consisted entirely of building supplies, and the shipping department then closed for the weekend. Four shipments were sent to Truax Construction last week, only three of which consisted of building supplies.

From the fact set above, we know:

1. The TC had 3 building supplies and 1 something else.

Let's do a POE:

If the shipping clerk's statements are true, which of the following must also be true?
A. At least one of the shipments sent to Truax Construction last week was specially ordered. - This fails the fact test. The stem doesn't say that the building supplies were sp ordered or the fourth item was esp ordered. The stem gives us no info of what was shipped from Mon to Wed so basing our judgement on limited info is wrong.
B. At least one of last week's specially ordered shipments did not consist of building supplies. - We don't know what were the esp ordered shipments were they building supplies or not isn't given in the passage.

C. At least one of the shipments sent to Truax Construction was not sent out on Thursday of last week. - The passage only tells us that esp ordered shipments were sent on Thursday. Were these esp ordered a mix of BS and others or were they just BS. None of that is stated.

D. At least one of the shipments that were sent out on Friday of last week was sent to Truax Construction. - We know that on Friday only BS were sent this doesn't mean the reverse that only on Friday BS were sent. Maybe they were sent on any of the days prior to friday.

E. At least one of the shipments sent to Truax Construction last week was sent out before Friday. - Correct. Since, we know that only BS were sent on Friday and TC has 4 items therefore one item was def sent before friday.

dartz wrote:Shipping Clerk: The five specially ordered shipments sent out last week were sent out on Thursday. Last week, all of the shipments that were sent out on Friday consisted entirely of building supplies, and the shipping department then closed for the weekend. Four shipments were sent to Truax Construction last week, only three of which consisted of building supplies.

If the shipping clerk�s statements are true, which of the following must also be true?
A. At least one of the shipments sent to Truax Construction last week was specially ordered.
B. At least one of last week�s specially ordered shipments did not consist of building supplies.
C. At least one of the shipments sent to Truax Construction was not sent out on Thursday of last week.
D. At least one of the shipments that were sent out on Friday of last week was sent to Truax Construction.
E. At least one of the shipments sent to Truax Construction last week was sent out before Friday.


OA is E but I feel that answer is C. Any ideas?

Hi Dartz,

Let's draw up the premises from the stimulus:

Premise 1: Thursday = All 5 specially ordered shipments of the week + could have had more consignments which were shipped
Premise 2: Friday = Only building supply shipments
Premise 3: Shipping done only Monday - Friday
Premise 4: Truax Construction = 4 shipments; 3 shipments = building supplies

Note: Special shipment is a type of custom-made shipment whereas building supplies is a category of the contents of the shipment. It is possible that a shipment is a building supply category special shipment.

Now, checking for the options to find one which must hold true:
A. There is nothing to indicate in the stimulus that any number of the Truax shipment was specially ordered. INCORRECT
B. The stimulus does not mention anything about the contents of the special shipments whether they consisted of building supplies or not. INCORRECT
C. The stimulus does not tell us whether all of the Truax shipments were specially ordered. Also, the stimulus only mentions that all specially ordered shipments were shipped out on Thursday but NOT that only specially ordered shipments were shipped out on Thursday. There could have been other shipments shipped out on Thursday as well. INCORRECT
D. While all shipments sent out on Friday were of building supplies, the reverse is not true. It does not imply that all building material shipments were sent out on Friday. So, it is possible that all Truax shipments were already shipped before Friday. INCORRECT.
E. Premise 2 mentions that all shipments shipped out on Friday contained building supplies. In the Truax order, 1 of the shipments is a non-building supplies shipment. So, even if all their building supplies shipment was shipped out on Friday, at least 1 of their shipment was sent out before Friday (since there was no shipping done over the weekend) CORRECT

So, the correct answer here is E.

dartz wrote:Shipping Clerk: The five specially ordered shipments sent out last week were sent out on Thursday. Last week, all of the shipments that were sent out on Friday consisted entirely of building supplies, and the shipping department then closed for the weekend. Four shipments were sent to Truax Construction last week, only three of which consisted of building supplies.

If the shipping clerk's statements are true, which of the following must also be true?
A. At least one of the shipments sent to Truax Construction last week was specially ordered.
B. At least one of last week's specially ordered shipments did not consist of building supplies.
C. At least one of the shipments sent to Truax Construction was not sent out on Thursday of last week.
D. At least one of the shipments that were sent out on Friday of last week was sent to Truax Construction.
E. At least one of the shipments sent to Truax Construction last week was sent out before Friday.

Apply the NEGATION TEST.
When the correct answer choice is negated, the passage will be CONTRADICTED.

E, negated:
None of the shipments sent to Truax Construction last week was sent out before Friday.
According to the passage:
Every shipment sent out on Friday consisted of building supplies, and no shipments were sent out after Friday.
Only three of the four shipments sent to Truax consisted of building supplies.
Thus, the Truax shipment that did NOT consist of building supplies must have been sent out BEFORE Friday.
Since the negation of E contradicts the passage, E is the correct inference: the answer choice that MUST BE TRUE, given the information in the passage.

The correct answer is E.

GMATGuruNY wrote:

dartz wrote:Shipping Clerk: The five specially ordered shipments sent out last week were sent out on Thursday. Last week, all of the shipments that were sent out on Friday consisted entirely of building supplies, and the shipping department then closed for the weekend. Four shipments were sent to Truax Construction last week, only three of which consisted of building supplies.

If the shipping clerk's statements are true, which of the following must also be true?
A. At least one of the shipments sent to Truax Construction last week was specially ordered.
B. At least one of last week's specially ordered shipments did not consist of building supplies.
C. At least one of the shipments sent to Truax Construction was not sent out on Thursday of last week.
D. At least one of the shipments that were sent out on Friday of last week was sent to Truax Construction.
E. At least one of the shipments sent to Truax Construction last week was sent out before Friday.

Apply the NEGATION TEST.
When the correct answer choice is negated, the passage will be CONTRADICTED.

E, negated:
None of the shipments sent to Truax Construction last week was sent out before Friday.
According to the passage:
Every shipment sent out on Friday consisted of building supplies, and no shipments were sent out after Friday.
Only three of the four shipments sent to Truax consisted of building supplies.
Thus, the Truax shipment that did NOT consist of building supplies must have been sent out BEFORE Friday.
Since the negation of E contradicts the passage, E is the correct inference: the answer choice that MUST BE TRUE, given the information in the passage.

The correct answer is E.

Why A is wrong?

If we have 3 shipments entirely consist of building material, so there is still on shipment that is special order?

what do I miss??

Thanks

Mo2men wrote:Why A is wrong?

If we have 3 shipments entirely consist of building material, so there is still on shipment that is special order?

what do I miss??

Thanks

Do not overly constrain the problem.
The passage does not indicate that the five specially ordered shipments and the shipments sent out on Friday were the ONLY shipments sent out last week.
No information is given about Thursday shipments that were NOT specially ordered.
No information is given about shipments sent out Monday through Wednesday.
Since it is possible that all of the Truax shipments were sent out on Monday -- and thus were NOT specially ordered -- A does not have to be true.
Eliminate A.