Critical Reasoning

All of John’s friends say they know someone who has smoked 40 cigarettes a day for the past 40 years and yet who is really fit and well. John does not know anyone like that and it is quite certain that he is not unique among his friends in this respect.

If the statements in the passage are true, then which one of the following must also be true?

(A) Smokers often lie about how much they smoke.
(B) People often knowingly exaggerate without intending to lie.
(C) All John’s friends know the same lifelong heavy smoker.
(D) Most of John’s friends are not telling the truth.
(E) Some of John’s friends are not telling the truth.

IMO C
not sure about it

can you provide the OA

I would go for E based on the last line of the sentence.

I will go with E as well.What is the OA pls?

OA is (E).

codesnooker wrote:OA is (E).

Does this question stem has an official explanation? Based on the set of premises, I would have gone with [C], because there is no inference that could be implied some of the friends would like about knowing someone who has smoked 40 ciggis everyday for the past 40 days.

I am confused is well.

if the STATEMENT is true, then we can derive nothing. If John's BELIEFS are true, that I can understand the answer to be E.

All of John’s friends say they know someone who has smoked 40 cigarettes a day for the past 40 years and yet who is really fit and well. John does not know anyone like that and it is quite certain that he is not unique among his friends in this respect.

The second bold sentence says that John is not unique in not knowing someone who smoke that many cigarettes... thus some of his frnds must be unknown to a person who smokes many cigarettes ....

As the first sentence says that all his frnds know someone.. This means some of the frnds are lying ....


So i will go for E

Moreover there is no evidence to say that all frnds know same person...
Thus C is wrong...

nervesofsteel wrote:All of John’s friends say they know someone who has smoked 40 cigarettes a day for the past 40 years and yet who is really fit and well. John does not know anyone like that and it is quite certain that he is not unique among his friends in this respect.

That's such a minute dissection of the passage as a whole and if you are able to take it apart within the time limit then kudos to your CR skills

nervesofsteel wrote: The second bold sentence says that John is not unique in not knowing someone who smoke that many cigarettes... thus some of his frnds must be unknown to a person who smokes many cigarettes ....

As the first sentence says that all his frnds know someone.. This means some of the frnds are lying ....

Is it not implied that information presented in the Must Be True questions should be accepted at the face value? So, when the statements says that "All of John's friends know someone who smokes 40 ciggis a day for the past 40 years", then it must be true...How can we go about inferring that some of the John's friends must be lying?

I don't know; I am still skeptical about the OA. Any experts? What do they think about some questions cropping up in exam?

Kanha,

Responding to your PM:

Note: For a must be true question a minimalist answer almost always turns out to be correct(with some notable exceptions)

Some means atleast 1 (1-100) . If its true that all of John's friends know someone who has smoked 40 cigars a day for the last 40 years (is also fit and well) and John does not but John is not unique among his friends in this respect then it means there is alteast one friend of John in John's friends group that is lying. There could be more but we can definitely say there is atleast one (making John not unique in this aspect) . Eliminate D and choose E

For must be true questions the answers of these types almost always turn out to be correct answers:

1) Answers that are a paraphrase of one or more parts of the stimulus (i.e. premises)
2) Answers that are a logical deduction from one or more parts of the stimulus or argument

The answer to this question can be obtained using 2)

For must be true questions:

Note: We must always be able to refer back to facts given in the stimulus and prove the answer choice we have picked. We cannot bring in new info thats outside the scope of whats given in the stimulus to prove the answer choice we have picked. If we pick C we are falling in to this trap since we have no idea who the 40 year smokers could be and we cannot prove this in any form or fashion from whats given in the stimlus.

Hope this helps!

Regards,
CR

IMO it's C.

This argument requires you to analyze a causal assumption, which means if X is true then Y must be true. In this case the conclusion is "John believes that people who smoke for 40 years can be healthy and fit. Eventhough he doesn't know anyone personally, and he just has his friends telling him that they know people.

The question explicitly asks if the statement is true....

This means whatever premises are mentioned in the passage must be true and the conclusion is based on those premises. Now we need to find another premise out of the answer choices that we can plug into the statement.

A--This choice weakens the argument and it uses strong language (often lie)

B--Can we use this as a premise in the argument. IMO no. It provides no support for the conclusion.

C--This is the most appropriate choice. If you analyze the choice, it's an alternate explanation that can be used to support the arguement.

D--Weakens and uses strong language. The passage clearly states that John doesn't know anyone but still believes his friends, and he is not unique among his friends. This means there are other friends who don't know anyone who has smoked for 40 years and is still healthy, but they believe it can happen.

E--weakens the arguement.

Remember that in GMAT if the passage states that pigs fly, then you have to assume that they do and find an assumption (premise) that supports the conclusion.

I hope this helps guys.

IMO E and my explanation would be similar to 'nervesofsteel's explanation.
Cramya has given the detailed version of the correct explanation..

ketkoag wrote:IMO E and my explanation would be similar to 'nervesofsteel's explanation.
Cramya has given the detailed version of the correct explanation..

We really need the OE. I think I'll PM codesnooker.

Unfortunately, I don't have OE because this question is from 1000 series.
May be some GMAT instructor can help on this. I am preparing on my own, so I don't know any instructor.

You guys need to help out.

Hi Andrew,

Here is my view. Though when I attempted I have chosen (D) instead of (E).

But I still think (E) deserves the credit because here few things are noticeable:-

1. John does not anyone who has smoked 40 cigarettes a day for the past 40 years
2. John is not unique among his friends in this respect. (that means AT LEAST one of his friend shares his opinion).
3. ALL of his friend know such guy who has smoked 40 cigarettes a day for the past 40 years.


So if we see point 2 and 3 mentioned above then we can see that both points are contradictory. Check the modifiers used in point 2 (AT LEAST ONE) and 3 (ALL).

So, we can conclude that AT LEAST one of his friend is LYING.

And we know that we can replace AT LEAST with SOME.

Hence, IMO (E) deserve the credit of right answer.

Let me know your opinion on this.