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playing with fire

by fibbonnaci » Sat Jan 09, 2010 7:38 pm
In metropolitan areas, almost 60 percent of all fires are set by children, while in rural areas about 40 percent are. A psychological survey discovered that all children who play with fire believe that there will be no consequences if their parents catch them doing it.

Which one of the following inferences can be most reliably drawn from the passage above?
(A) Most children who believe there will no consequences if they are discovered playing with fire do play with fire.
(B) Parents who discover their children playing with fire will prevent those children from playing with fire in the future.
(C) If parents have successfully instilled in their children the belief that there will be consequences if they are caught playing with fire, these children have not been among those playing with fire.
(D) Children who play with fire attach no sense of right or wrong to this action.
(E) Most children who do not play with fire believe there will be consequences if their parents discover them playing with fire.

Sorry forgot to put the OA:
OA is C
I'm clueless. Please explain
Last edited by fibbonnaci on Sun Jan 10, 2010 1:18 am, edited 1 time in total.
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by mmslf75 » Sat Jan 09, 2010 9:22 pm
fibbonnaci wrote:In metropolitan areas, almost 60 percent of all fires are set by children, while in rural areas about 40 percent are. A psychological survey discovered that all children who play with fire believe that there will be no consequences if their parents catch them doing it.

Which one of the following inferences can be most reliably drawn from the passage above?
(A) Most children who believe there will no consequences if they are discovered playing with fire do play with fire.
(B) Parents who discover their children playing with fire will prevent those children from playing with fire in the future.
(C) If parents have successfully instilled in their children the belief that there will be consequences if they are caught playing with fire, these children have not been among those playing with fire.
(D) Children who play with fire attach no sense of right or wrong to this action.
(E) Most children who do not play with fire believe there will be consequences if their parents discover them playing with fire.
IMO C

Infer as little as possible, is the key here.
all children who play with fire believe that there will be no consequences if their parents catch them doing it.

If parents have successfully instilled in their children the belief that there will be consequences if they are caught playing with fire, these children have not been among those playing with fire.


As argument states, children who believe no consequences if parents catch PLAY with FIRE
therefore, if parents have already informed children abt the dire consequences if parents were to spot children playing with fire, children with steer clear,,, this is what C says
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by Testluv » Sun Jan 10, 2010 2:55 pm
received a pm.

What's the source?

This is more of an LSAT kind of question. We can see why choice C must be true using formal logic.

This sentence:
A psychological survey discovered that all children who play with fire believe that there will be no consequences if their parents catch them doing it.
can be looked at like this: If a child is playing with fire, then that child believes there will be no consequences if caught by their parents.

The contrapositive of this conditional statement is: If a child believes there will be consequences (if caught by parents), then the child will not play with fire.

Choice C is a perfect match to the contrapositive. (mmslf's reasoning was correct, and he basically intuited the contrapositive).

Note: on the GMAT, you are NOT expected to be able to translate English sentences into conditional statements, and nor are you expected to know how to form contrapositives. In fact, in the OG, the test-maker explicitly states that the GMAT does not test conventions of formal logic.

"most" means more than half. There is nothing in the stimulus that would allow us to infer about fractions of children. That's why choice A is wrong. (The percentages discussed in the stimulus have to do with percentages of fires set by children).
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by fibbonnaci » Sun Jan 10, 2010 9:45 pm
awesome explanation Testluv. Thank you for the conditional reasoning approach.

But one doubt:
suppose i say All students drink coffee
and my answer choices say most students drink coffee.
IF 100 students drink coffee and i talk about 60 students drinking coffee, it still hold valid rite?

Some students drinking coffee
AC- All students drink coffee.

This would be a mistake, coz some means atleast 1. And using this to talk about All would mean generalization.

Am i correct???
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by mmslf75 » Mon Jan 11, 2010 4:35 am
fibbonnaci wrote:awesome explanation Testluv. Thank you for the conditional reasoning approach.

But one doubt:
suppose i say All students drink coffee
and my answer choices say most students drink coffee.
IF 100 students drink coffee and i talk about 60 students drinking coffee, it still hold valid rite?

Some students drinking coffee
AC- All students drink coffee.

This would be a mistake, coz some means atleast 1. And using this to talk about All would mean generalization.

Am i correct???
@fibo

If A then B

If NOT B then NOT A
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by Testluv » Mon Jan 11, 2010 6:54 am
fibbonnaci wrote:awesome explanation Testluv. Thank you for the conditional reasoning approach.

But one doubt:
suppose i say All students drink coffee
and my answer choices say most students drink coffee.
IF 100 students drink coffee and i talk about 60 students drinking coffee, it still hold valid rite?

Some students drinking coffee
AC- All students drink coffee.

This would be a mistake, coz some means atleast 1. And using this to talk about All would mean generalization.

Am i correct???
If ALL students drink coffee, then it is also true that MOST do, and it is also true that SOME do. (ALL includes MOST and SOME). You are right that we can't do it in reverse: just because SOME students drink coffee certainly doesn't mean that MOST or ALL do.

However, here, the passage tells us that all children who play with fire believe there will be no consequences (if caught by parents). Therefore, most and some children who play with fire also believe there will be no consequences (if caught by parents). BUT we can't say that most children who believe there won't be consequences when playing with fire actually do play with fire.

By analogy: suppose all students who drink coffee do so in order to keep them awake. Does this mean that most students drink coffee??
Last edited by Testluv on Mon Jan 11, 2010 7:06 am, edited 2 times in total.
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by Testluv » Mon Jan 11, 2010 6:56 am
This:
If A then B

If NOT B then NOT A
is correct. This is a pair of contraposing conditional statements.

However, this is also outside the scope of the GMAT.
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by fibbonnaci » Mon Jan 11, 2010 8:47 am
wowww. that drilled the concept straight into my head. Thanks a lot Testluv for the awesome explanations.
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by sreak1089 » Mon Jan 11, 2010 8:57 am
There is a conditional statment in the question stem, which can be stated as:

if (Parents catch children Playing Fire) then Children believe there will be not any consequence.

Above can be symbolically written (using Formal Logic) as:

PCPF --> !CBC

PCPF --> Parents catch children Playing Fire
!CBC --> Negation of (Children believe there will be consequence).

For any conditional statement, contrapositive of the statement also holds true, which is:

CBC --> !PCPF

i.e., if (Children are made to believe there will be consequences) then parents would NOT catch children playing with Fire, which is exactly the paraphrased in answer choice C.
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by harshavardhanc » Tue Jan 12, 2010 2:22 am
I know that I'm a little late.... anyway, not going to give further explanation, but a suggestion : read the chapter about "Must Be True" statements in the CR Bible... will be very easy to find the contenders, the losers and the winner!

The scope in the stimulus is very narrow and hence, 3 answer choices: A, B and E will be the losers instantaneously. C & D will remain. From these, further instructions in the chapter will help you chose C. Believe me, it will hardly take a minute to pick C, if you follow those steps.

I'm deliberately not telling what the "further instructions" are because, I want everyone to be helped by that amazing book!
Regards,
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by mmslf75 » Tue Jan 12, 2010 11:54 am
harshavardhanc wrote:I know that I'm a little late.... anyway, not going to give further explanation, but a suggestion : read the chapter about "Must Be True" statements in the CR Bible... will be very easy to find the contenders, the losers and the winner!

The scope in the stimulus is very narrow and hence, 3 answer choices: A, B and E will be the losers instantaneously. C & D will remain. From these, further instructions in the chapter will help you chose C. Believe me, it will hardly take a minute to pick C, if you follow those steps.

I'm deliberately not telling what the "further instructions" are because, I want everyone to be helped by that amazing book!
Indeed it's a good book !
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