Critical Reasoning

So how do u contdict option D??

So u mean to say D is true??

Plz explain @ 2010 Gmat

yes D MIGHT be true .. thats why it cannot be the answer

the question asks us to find ..which of the following Cannot be true...this is a typical LSAT question...

let me know if you need any further help

@experts , do we get canno be true ques in GMAT also??

2010gmat wrote:yes D MIGHT be true ..

the question asks us to find ..which of the following Cannot be true...this is a typical LSAT question...

let me know if you need any further help

@experts , do we get canno be true ques in GMAT also??

@2010Gmat,

Could u plz explain how D is true Quantitaively by an example..I shall aprreciate ur time & energy..

I do accept its a LSAT prep Q & it asks for find the"CANNOT BE TRUE answer".

as i said earlier D MIGHT be true.. therefore it cannot be cannot true {confusing }


d.) More good comedians have had unhappy childhoods than have had happy childhoods

argument simply says many people who have had happy childhoods are good comedians .. (let say = 100)

some good comedians who have had unhappy childhood are happy as adults...(let us say some good comedians who had unhappy childhood = 70)

in this case D. is not true

now consider the other case:

many people who have had happy childhoods are good comedians .. (let say = 80)

some good comedians who have had unhappy childhood are happy as adults...(let us say some good comedians who had unhappy childhood = 90)

in this case its true...

i think you are getting confused by the use of many and some...

are you assuming that many would mean more than some??

hmm,

I just reread the stimulus, and I have made a small error in my remarks. As 2010gmat points out, the passage does state that many people with happy childhoods become good comedians. This does mean that it is impossible for "all" good comedians to have had unhappy childhoods. (went over the passage too fast the first time)

However, without this phrase, all my comments are correct because "some" does include the possibility of "all".

Also, this issue is completely irrelevant for determining the correct answer: Either way, because ALL of the best comedians have had unhappy childhoods, it CANNOT be true that the fraction of good comedians with unhappy childhoods is greater.
Therefore, Choice A is still the only answer choice that CANNOT BE TRUE.

I agree 100% with 2010gmat's explanation for why choice D is incorrect: it could be true.

The GMAT might ask you a CANNOT be true question in CR but it is unlikely. A good rule of thumb for determining how GMAT-like a question is, is to ask whether you've seen a question like it in the OG.

I could be wrong but I don't think there are any CANNOT be true questions in CR in the OG (way different story, of course, in problem solving).

Could u plz explain how D is true Quantitaively by an example..I shall aprreciate ur time & energy..

I do accept its a LSAT prep Q & it asks for find the"CANNOT BE TRUE answer".

All of the best comedians have had unhappy childhoods. Yet, many people who have had happy childhoods are good comedians, and some good comedians who have had miserably unhappy childhoods are happy adults.

If the statements in the passage are true, which one of the following CANNOT be true?
(D) More good comedians have had unhappy childhoods than have had happy childhoods.

Hi gmatmachoman,

I think your confusion lies in interpreting the words "some" and "many" in the passage. Both of these terms mean "at least one"; "many" is not necessarily stronger than "some"!

Because "many" people with happy childhoods become good comedians, there is at least one good comedian who led a happy childhood. Because "some" good comedians led miserably unhappy childhoods, there is also at least one good comedian who led a (miserably) unhappy childhood.

Say there are ten good comedians. All we know is that at least one led a happy childhood and that at least one led a miserably unhappy childhood. (Because of this, we also have an additional obvious deduction that ALL good comedians could not have been either happy or miserably unhappy as children.)

But, other than that, we don't have enough information to conlude whether, among all the good comedians in the world what fratction had happy childhoods versus what fraction led miersably unhappy childhoods. Nine of the ten could have had miserably unhhappy childhoods; also nine of the ten could have had happy childhoods.

Accordingly, we don't have enough information to conclude that it CANNOT be true that "more good comedians have had unhappy childhoods than have had happy childhoods."

Please believe me, GMAT will not test this. The OG explicitly says they do not test formal logic conventions, and we are at the height of formal logic conventions right here!

The official answer is D. But I don't understand why? Can anyone explain